A Book and Its Cover: Rose Solari Reviews Two New Collections of Poetry for WIRoB
Terri Ellen Cross Davis and Dan Beachy-Quick's new collections get the Rose Solari treatment in a new review which ties subject matter to cover design.
Rose Solari's latest review column for Washington Independent Review of Books tackles two stellar new collections by established small-press poets, Terry Ellen Cross Davis and Dan Beachy-Quick. As with all her reviews, Rose uses a common theme to link the subject matter of the books she is reviewing. This month, she explores how the cover design is mirrored by the poetry and vice versa.
Of Terri Ellen Cross Davis' new collection a more perfect union, Rose writes that before you read the first page you know that the poems will be "strong, elegant, embodied, female, and Black." She goes on to praise Cross Davis' incisive poetry which "[don't] waste time." In Rose's words Cross Davis' "lyricism is purposeful, her observations cut quick and sharp." Finally, Rose praises Cross Davis for her lack of "sugar-coating" particularly in poems which detail the relationship of a Black mother and son.
Of Dan Beachy-Quick's aptly titled Arrows, Rose praises a cover and forward matter that at first appear overly "precious" but, after reading the first poem and being transported "immediately into another world, an imagined ancient time where place is a meditative state of mind," capture the mood and feel of the book perfectly. Rose both praises and criticizes the classical bent of the poetry:
"Unless you’re a classicist yourself, you might need a few reference books (or handy use of online searches) to follow these poems to their landing places. But rather than being put off by that, I was grateful to feel, as I read, my mind widening to encompass the contradictory impulses, the sly jokes followed by unabashed celebration that these poems contain."
Small Press Week 2018: Monday, a look back at the Inception of ASP
We’d been talking about founding a press for a few years. I was becoming increasingly frustrated and angry about what was happening to some of the books I’d edited, and to some of my writer friends. Some of the books I worked on already had committed publishers, who knew my work and wanted me involved, and that’s great. But sometimes I was hired by a writer who had a publisher but knew they were not going to give the book a thorough edit – there is less and less of that going on these days, as you can see from opening even a big-name title. And I think — we think — that that is awful. If you are published by ASP, you get a thorough and very fine edit…
Featured Audio: “The Lovesick Lake,” a Story by James J Patterson
“Lovers of the personal essay should be rejoicing in the streets at word of this collection. For readers and acquaintances of Jimmy Patterson, it is long overdue, but the author was born in Washington, D.C., where the machinery of progress is congenitally slow. So this book, in many important ways – is what all satisfying collections of autobiographical essays should be – a mirror of place.” Rick Walter
Armistice Day, known in the US as Veteran’s Day, is now a work week past, but for James J Patterson it is a memory and idea that refuses to restrain itself to a 24 hour period. Yesterday we published his moving account of those veterans of The Great War he knew growing up, memorializing and contextualizing them for an audience whose experience of the war may only be through the muddy, pained faces in old photographs…
The World of Yesterday (Armistice Day, 2018)
My father always said that his first memory was of standing on the couch in his parent’s living room, small hands on the back cushion, peering out a picture widow at a neighborhood street in Bend, Oregon. There is a slow-moving line of cars and horse-drawn carriages inching its way down the lane. The line of cars is there every day, and every day he stands there and watches. His street is a long one and at the end of it is the cemetery. He is not allowed to go outside to play. Death is all anyone talks about. Death from a great flu epidemic. Death from a great war just ending. Everyone has lost someone. Most have lost a few. It is 1918…