Review by Deborah K. Fronteira A poet as well-known as Raymond Luczak has been published in numerous books, anthologies, and literary journals. It would be hard to own all the various publications listed in the acknowledgment section of this volume, so Modern History Press made it easy working with Raymond…
Review by Sharon Brunner Dredge Artistic Decay, written by T. Kilgore Splake, offered the reader renditions of past losses. After the “Copper Boom” in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.), businesses crumbled and along came the appearance of industrial relics. During the boom miners dredged millions of pounds of copper…
Review by Brad Gischia “Of the 500-some men and women who set foot in Florida in 1527, only four survived after wandering for eight years across the American Southwest.” The only realistic comparison that we can make today to the men and women who traveled across oceans to “discover” the…
Review by Tyler Tichelaar What would you do if your husband and best friend wanted to get married? That question might seem absurd, but it isn’t for Adrian Riley. You see, Adrian died in a car accident, and now her spirit is watching over her husband Jake and her best…
Review by Mack Hassler The Constipated Elephant: A Mystery at Pennington House by A. Jay may be one of the most confused storytelling piece of prose that I have read. The emphasis on character and on the apparatus of the novel as “fantasy” rather than just history, however, makes it…
Review by Sharon Brunner Mikel B. Classen’s book True Tales: The Forgotten History of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula provides historical information most of us do not know about or have forgotten. The Upper Peninsula (U.P.), a rugged, uncharted wilderness, haunted and delighted many through lawlessness, natural and man-made phenomenon. The man-made…
Review by Hannah Brinza Julian May’s children’s book The Big Island: A Story of Isle Royale was originally published in 1968 but the timeless tale continues to educate and inspire young minds today. Isle Royale is considered one of the most remote National Parks and is located off the coast…
Sons and Fathers in a New Place Review by Mack Hassler “ … in words begin responsibilities.” Louis Ginsberg to his son Allen Ginsberg in Dharma Lion (St Martin’s Press, 1992), 309. It is exciting to discover the Beat Generation in UP literature far from the Bay Area of the…
The Academy We Need Review by Mack Hassler In reading this solid new chapbook of poems by a fine poet, whom I had not heard of before, it is clear that being from Copper Country (Laurium) need not confine one to local color work. Johnson makes use of ideas, images…
Review by Sharon Brunner Jon C. Stott provided a colorful and realistic view of spending time at a cabin during the course of his life in his book “Summers at the Lake: Upper Michigan Moments and Memories.” The Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.) renders many opportunities to explore the historical…
Trout Fishing in our Own Lake Review by Mack Hassler Like many serious writers, this poet tinkers with his name for literary purposes. He invents an identity that links his work to the clever science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut (Kilgore Trout) as well as to the Kerouac-type Beat writer Richard…
Review by Sharon Brunner In the book A Mouse Tail on Mackinac Island written by Summer Porter a family of mice travels to Mackinac Island in search of a new home. Father Mouse is known for his love of cheese. Mother Mouse wore a white apron and sings lullabies. Max…
Review by Victor R. Volkman Allan Koski is that rare combination of an eloquent historian, talented engineer, and a storyteller with a penchant for seeing the big picture. Because I thoroughly enjoyed Koski’s Another Time, Another Place: World War II in the Pacific 1941-1944, which details the exploits of his…
Life beyond shadows, poems by t. kilgore splake (Shoe Music Press, 2021); In Other Days, Roger Craik (BlazeVox Books, 2022) Haiku and Winnie-the-Pooh Review by Mack Hassler My friend and colleague, Roger Craik, has a very nice poem on A.A. Milne in the new collection of his poems In Other…
Review by Victor R. Volkman I’ll admit it’s extremely rare for a book like Know Your Ships 2022 to cross my desk, but I am extremely impressed by the beauty and detail that it packs into such a compact, colorful, and comprehensive volume. It’s hardly bigger than an average trade…
To Build a Tunnel by Deborah K Frontiera (originally published 2004) as volume one of The Chronicles of Henry Roach-Dairier From Fandom to Full Cultural Foundation Review by Mack Hassler In modern times, we often label this sort of enthusiastic imitation of types “fandom” as in science fiction fandom or…
Review by Sharon Brunner The poems in this book, Roads Not Traveled: Collection of Poems, were inspired by Robert Frost. Travelers are strongly affected by the decisions they make, for better or worse. T. Kilgore Splake felt forced to take a path less wanted instead of a naval career. Teaching…
Review by Sharon Brunner The journey of a prominent Upper Peninsula poet, T. Kilgore Splake, was as significant as the destination, as Robert M. Zoschke details in his new biography The Road to Splake. Thomas Smith, Splake’s given name, grew up in Three Rivers, Michigan with two older sisters. His…
