Review by Deborah K Frontiera Lake Superior is a random, unpredictable lake, so it is not surprising that Lynn Domina’s poetry book Inland Sea has a random order. You can open it anywhere and read one or two, pondering and digesting them for a while before flipping to another page….
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Patricia Killelea’s Solace: Poems from the Northwoods” offers a haunting and alluring view of life in the Northwoods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.). The U.P. was and still is considered an immense array of ruggedness and beauty. A black bear can be just around the…
Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Kathleen M. Heideman’s poetry collection The Caving Grounds is almost impossible to describe. You must experience it for yourself to fully understand the riches to be mined from it, but I will try to give a flavor of it. Imagine placing an iron ore pellet…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Raymond Luczak’s book Ironhood: Poems recalls neighbors, neighborhoods, shopkeepers, his mother, past events, and places associated with the town of Ironwood, Michigan, a Gogebic Iron Range community. Ironwood is a town located in the western portion of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.). The town was founded…
Review by Deborah K Frontiera Not so long ago, there didn’t seem to be much Upper Peninsula, Michigan, literature or poetry published. Now there is an abundance. Some skeptics might say there is enough, or think What, another UP Poetry book? Another “outsider” arriving to experience life in the woods….
Review by Mack Hassler “That is why it was called Babel— because the Lord confused the language of the whole world” Genesis 11:9 I think I will always, in a way, be thankful that God’s new creation of mankind in the Garden was a failed experiment. Adam and Eve and…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Ellen Lord’s book Vigil: Poems captures the nuances of everyday life and its vast array of emotions. Lord portrays an early December morning and how cold suspends time. She pictured an old cabin which was currently empty and memories such as counting the time between lightening strikes…
Review by Mack Hassler “Young Mason would spend much of his time in far off New York City…where there was work to be done in the new Nation.” Life and Times of Steven Thomas Mason Boy Governor of Michigan, Lawton T. Hemans (1920). I have been reading for review some books…
Review by Mack Hassler References Paul Fussell, Meter and Poetic Form (1965) Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (1975) Kelly Peach prides himself on being an “author” in a rather charming way in Please, Do Not Tap on the Glass about the form of his poems. I have…
Reviewed by Sharon Brunner Nia To Go There’s matwân cî …wondering about now and then and everything everywhere poetry book portrays an innate intimacy between animals, birds, humans and inanimate objects between worlds. Stories, language, dances and visions exist and were experienced everywhere with everything. In other words, the time…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera The book’s title-poem, “Roots in Water” does not appear until close to the end of the book. It is about snipping a shoot from a bush and placing it in a pickle jar of water to grow a new plant. Simple, but also complex, since…
Review by Mack Hassler Rome Asleep Rome in her nightdress, nothing supporting…. Bridges across the Tiber hold islands in their sleep…. In the morning tourists will return Fresh from hotel showers, packed in buses That hum like arrows around the cars parked On edges of space. (p. 15) In…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Raymond Luczak’s Animals Out-There W-i-l-d: A Bestiary in English and ASL Gloss painted a picture of the beauty of nature, nature’s resilience, and the ugliness of human behavior. Luczak wrote about the animals, reptiles, and birds who live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.) Luczak grew…
Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar In these pages, we might say the mystery of Bigfoot is solved, and yet, in all of his many aspects, as revealed by former two-time UP Poet Laureate Martin Achatz in this book, he becomes more enigmatic than ever. If you think you know Bigfoot,…
Review by Mack Hassler The Walloon Writers Review annual collection is inspired by Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. The Northern Shore of the UP from East to West is defined by the Big Lake with a small stretch of Lake Huron reaching toward Canada beyond the Bridge. On the…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera What makes us “sane” or “insane”? That is the question poet Ellen Lord explores in her collection of poems, Relative Sanity. The opening poem, “Muse”, speaks of thoughts coming to us out of silence. Then there are memories of the poet’s childhood and her unbalanced…
Review by Ellen Lord My old friend Charlie kept telling me about the poetry of Andrew Riutta. Now, Charlie isn’t a poet but he is featured in some of these poems…so I didn’t take him too seriously until I finally ordered Blessed. I usually take my time in reading a…
By Ellen Lord I met Ronnie Ferguson after a Yooper Poetry reading at the Peter White Library in Marquette, Michigan. His kindness and his humor were palpable. I sensed a little ‘darkness’….and knew I had to have his new chapbook. When I Was a Fire is a powder keg of…
