In Jesus Merch, Megan McDermott gets inspiration for her poems’ theological questions from a wide variety of Christian items, including “plush angels” and a religious wedding “cake topper.” The collection uses humor to invite us to explore these important questions but goes beyond simple entertainment. The poem “Nativity Journey Christmas Board Game—$3.29” features a Christmas game that is a funny journey toward “Jesus in the manger.” While the opening lines raise the question of whether those “baptized as babies” have the “head start” to Jesus or whether those with “dramatic entrances”—“those with testimonies”—are the ones to “surge ahead,” the poem proceeds to emphasize the importance of laughter on the journey, filled with life’s unpredictability. Regardless of whether they were baptized early or not, everyone experiences random setbacks, like “a sheep is blocking the path. -1 space,” but also boosts, such as “an angel brings good news! +2 spaces.” Embracing the joy of the trip is more important in this lighthearted world than engaging in theological contention, since the actual test of achievement is “how many laughs we’re able / to fit from here to there.”
—Michael Cruz
Julien Vocance’s One Hundred Visions of War (translated from the French by Alfred Nicol) is a collection that forces the reader back into the French trenches during World War One. This series of haiku, which Vocance coined haï-kaï, is uncomfortable. It is grim to read. Traditionally, classic haiku focuses on nature, seasons, and brief moments to create a sense of beauty and simplicity. They are extremely concise and often have a sort of contemplative style. Alfred Nicol explains that Vocance stretches the conventional haiku form to create a piece that can depict the horror and brutality of armed conflict. As a result, readers “witness . . . the experience of the human being caught up in a battle which, as Wendell Berry put it, ‘the machines won’.”
The cannons tonight
shake with such violent coughing
it can't last. It can't.
This haiku captures an intense moment where humans and machines are battling. The opening line immediately sets the scene and creates a sort of immediacy. In the second line, Vocance uses personification when he describes the “cannons” as violently “coughing,” a human characteristic. By treating the cannon as if it were human, he creates a visceral image that shows the onslaught of the machine upon man. The last line adds a sense of desperation with little hope for relief. This individual haiku can stand alone, showing a snapshot moment of battle, but also when taken together with others in the series contributes to the overall sense of chaos and the emotional impact of war—the feeling of hopelessness or even despair.
—Tilak Datta
In Richard Michelson’s poetry collection Sleeping as Fast as I Can, my favorite piece is a prose poem titled "Fake News.” The reflection in the poem is sparked by his memory of how his “Facebook feed went crazy” after, without naming names though, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway coined the term “alternative facts” to defend a false statement made by the White House press secretary at the time. Facebook becomes a battleground of conflicting opinions with one “friend” announcing he wants to write a poem titled “Fake News” and another cautioning against the “topical” nature of such a poem, concerned that its relevance would fade quickly and leave readers in confusion. However, amidst the contemporary chaos, the narrator's thoughts turn to an historical event—the martyrdom of St. William of Norwich in the twelfth century, “while the monk, Thomas of Monmouth, concocted a blood libel, blaming the ritual murder . . . on the Jews.” The juxtaposition of the historical and contemporary highlights the continuity of misinformation. The poem takes a satirical turn when the narrator, sitting in a museum with a “brand-new smartphone,” engages with “clickbait” instead of classic literature like The Canterbury Tales. The allusion to Chaucer introduces irony as the poet points out that even Chaucer himself perpetuated a similar libel “through the lips of his Prioress.” The poem, ultimately, serves as a reflection on the dangers of misinformation, drawing connections between historical prejudices and the modern era's challenges in discerning truth.
—Jacques du Plooy
Throughout Jane Greer’s The World as We Know It Is Falling Away, we see poems that correlate to the problems most humans are facing in our day-to-day world. “Trending” is a poem that everyone has a connection with as now social media has taken over the world. Even though it has its positives such as networking and growing small business, one of its dangers is the damage it can do to our sense of self-worth, which should come from our belief in the God-given dignity of the human person. After the speaker has watched “The likes [to her post] blow up, numeric affirmation / of [her] whole life, so brilliantly employed,” she finds that “By afternoon, some wit or politician” has seized her “ranking” and so ends with satiric commentary on this experience with social media: “when I'm not trending, I do not exist.” This misperception could become a reality to someone who looks for validation from social media—from “likes” on a picture or new followers. The world is changing fast, and this book from Jane Greer really makes us see the world as we know it is falling away.
—Tyler Dukevicz
What initially intrigued me about Katie Hartsock’s book Wolf Trees was the title. What was a wolf tree? Through further inquiry, I discovered that wolf trees are a special kind of tree. They have the widest trunk and their branches spread out for the biggest hug. They are ancient and stand massive in comparison to the trees surrounding them. They have withstood the harshest winters and scorching summers. Very much like this tree, which stands as inspiration for this book, the poems express moments of resilience in the harshest moments of life – moments of sorrow and of overcoming, of motherhood, and of illness (specifically diabetes).
While Wolf Trees isn't focused exclusively on the role of Christianity in this resilience, it does makes references to various religious texts to bring forth the ideas explored in her poetry. In the poem “Trying,” she also mentions the Greek mythological gods Hermes and Apollo. She starts the poem by exposing her resilience in the process of trying to conceive a child: “Trying, / as it's called. Even after losses, still trying. / . . . / / I wanted / to write my miscarriages but I had to keep walking / into them.” She ties the tale of Hermes’ birth and the eventual resolution of his conflict with Apollo into her own story, alternating one stanza to tell their story and the next to tell hers: Hermes “who wanted his godhead but even more a family / and just had to get their attention.”
In many of her poems she also references movies, historical characters, fictional characters, and celebrities, to bring a sense of humor to her situation. She uses these names to further clarify her points about illness, suffering, and resilience. Overall, this poetry book is filled with raw moments of difficulties felt universally that Hartsock does not try to filter. She leaves her audience speechless and meditating on the way life turns out for us.
—Adelin Figueroa
Nick Maione’s Infinite Arrivals is a book that pushes readers to understand the reality that life is uncontrollable, and the only way to find happiness is to move on enjoying time as it passes and finding beauty in the small things of life. One recurring symbol is the river, highlighting how there is a flow of time that cannot be stopped by human beings. Overall, the poems suggest that once we are aware of and accept that there will be many difficulties in our lives and that it is this struggle that connects all human beings, we will arrive at a kind of tranquility with each one. Life becomes a series of “infinite arrivals” at this destination of peace.
One poem that expresses this sense of peace in the midst of flux is “Once.” The poem begins with the simple phrase, “It was enough that . . .” and moves on with a description of a man who is washing off in a “shallow river.” It seems as though he yearns for a wife whom he has never had or who has died. Readers at first might imagine that he is daydreaming and feels the need to seek companionship. However, his continuation of washing himself demonstrates how he has come to peace with the idea of being alone. When “the cold water” that the man “splashes” on himself runs over his body, “it touches his hands again” and “it is so warm.” Maione includes this poem to connect back to the idea of how there is a feeling of tranquility once you are aware of the difficulties in life you might have to face.
—Ashley Gonzalez
Divination with a Human Heart Attached is Emily Stoddard’s debut collection of poetry that questions belief through stories. Foregrounded are the figures of Petronilla, daughter of St. Peter, and Magpie, a bird. Both Petronilla and Magpie give Stoddard inspiration for some of her poems, evidenced by the small epigraphs she provides for context, sometimes biblical, sometimes literary, sometimes scientific. Stoddard uses these poems not only to help her retain her belief in God but to question God as well, as seen in some of her titles: “Where did I leave my god,” “I was running to him,” and “If I have to believe in anything.”
In this collection, Stoddard divides her poetry into three different sections, each beginning with a little description of the Magpie bird to help with understanding the poems. It is said that the Magpie is a very intelligent bird because it can identify its reflection in the mirror, mimic human voices, use tools, and grieve. The different details about the Magpie inform the theme of each section: objective story-telling, refusal to mourn, and recognition of both the “good” and the “bad.” A significant number of poems in this collection are written from Petronilla’s perspective. With the influence of the magpie symbol, Stoddard gives a voice to a woman whose life is affected by a patriarchal society.
In “Petronilla tries to imagine her father’s prayer (III),” she just keeps trying to understand what went through her father’s mind when he decides to pray in favor of her disability. Each line of this poem starts with the word “Because.” This repetition is used to show that, although she has already been inflicted with disability and illness, she is still trying to understand. She cannot change what has happened to her, but maybe if she tries to understand it, then she can bear her new appearance. Petronilla states, “Because I do not know if the prayer startled you when you first heard it.” Maybe if she knew that her father had any regard for her feelings and knew that there was nothing else he could pray for, then she could accept herself. This poem is placed in the third section of the collection where the Magpie can recognize its own reflection. However, ironically Petronilla cannot even look at herself anymore because who she was is gone. Society conditions women to obsess over their image. If you do not have beauty, then you are disregarded as a human and especially as a woman. Petronilla recalls her mother’s reaction, “Because of the way my mother looks at me now / . . . Because her eyes say barren.” Without her beauty, her identity does not exist, and she cannot be an acceptable person in society.
-—Ashley Guzman
One unique element that unites the five sections in Sean Thomas Dougherty’s Death Prefers the Minor Keys is his recurring use of the epistolary form in four pieces called "death letters," which are letters written to Death directly. These contemplative letters, which span from Death Letter #1 to Death Letter #4, document the narrator's changing understanding of his own mortality. Letter #2, which opens the collection, struggles with “tradition” that "says it is not the maker but the marionettes who control the strings," probing ideas of fate and free will. Letter #3 vividly dreams of a world where "entire groves of white birch trees hung like clouds" and wonders "What is the secret name of the wind?" Though obscure at times, the letters feature a raw, conversational style that provides a candid framework for unpacking the myriad issues around death and grief raised by the collection. Yet despite wrestling with weighty subject matter, the death letters contain an inspirational undercurrent about finding liberation through accepting mortality.
In "Magdalene," Dougherty playfully yet poignantly compares his wife to Mary Magdalene, pondering her sensuality and strength in the face of mortality: "You sleep with your feeding tube, not flinching, nearly serene." Though “far from a whore, or holy,” like Magdalene, his wife possesses a similar distinction as she quietly suffers yet persists in embracing life's small joys like making breakfast and teaching their daughters. Dougherty is awed by his wife's ability to "bear the unbearable," likening her to Magdalene as a strong female witness to human fragility and grace.
This theme continues in "The Angels are Too Busy Arguing" as Dougherty grapples to understand his wife's premature decline. He imagines the "frailties" of her “body” are “due to the brightness of the light she leaks,” envisioning her luminous soul overwhelming her earthly body over time. While others ask if he grows tired of explaining his wife’s illness, Dougherty insists he is trying to chronicle “the distance one must travel, the weight one must be prepared to bear” in a loving relationship shadowed by death.
—Vidur Khanal
In Martha M. F. Kelly’s translation of Olga Sedakova’s Old Songs, the eighth poem in the second section, “Mirror,” could be said to epitomize the emotion and ideas of the collection as a whole. The beginning of the poem starts with a simple, yet universal question that many find themselves asking when they are doubtful. Kelly translates, “My darling, I don’t know, either: / why do these things happen?—” Sometimes it is hard to see what the future holds or how faith can help during a horrible situation. However, it is those questions that make us turn towards our faith for the answers that cannot be found in the physical world. The poem uses a tiny mirror as a symbolic representation of life. The speaker describes how this mirror is “the size of a lentil / or of a grain of millet,” and “what glimmers, what burns up there” are “those . . . things that shouldn’t be seen.” The wise voice of the poem suggests that while we only receive brief, small glimpses of parts of our lives, we must have faith that we “shouldn’t” see more. Using the mirror taps into the uncertainties and criticisms of life that Sedakova enterlaces throughout her poems. However, the last stanza of the poem inspires courage, compassion, and embracing the seeming smallness of human life:
I mean, life is such a small thing:
it can pull its whole self together
on your pinkie, on the tip of your eyelash.
And death surrounds it like the sea.
Life is a blessing that is simple and small, yet at times we can take it for granted. Since the uncertainty of death can happen at any moment, we must remember how fragile each of our lives is. Rather than wait for the inevitable end, Sedakova implies that we should build up the courage and share the compassion that makes life enjoyable. Sedakova and Kelly both include undertones of joy in the poems to reinforce the possibility of happiness during the darkest moments. Life as seen in the mirror “burns up” but also “glimmers.” The poem, like the book, encourages us to be aware that our “death” will be much larger than our “life,” so we must protect the fragility and beauty of life. Opening one’s heart to the world beyond the physical world may be difficult, but that is the beauty of the journey and faith.
—Kaitlyn Kida
Live in peace or die slowly. These are the two options the soul gets. St. John of the Cross, a Christian mystic, Spanish poet, and Doctor of the Church, believed that the soul was not healthy or going to survive without God. In Rhina P. Espaillat’s new translation of St. John’s The Spring that Feeds the Torrent, we find that St. John uses highly visual imagery when addressing God and assumes the role of non-believer beseeching God for favor, asking for His forgiveness for wrongdoing, and thanking Him for his gifts. The collection of poems shows the need for the living presence of God, and the lengths to which the soul bereft of that company will go in order to find him. To find peace is to find the love of God.
The soul will always crave and pursue what it needs in order to survive. It would go through pain and deny pleasure to find the missing piece it needs to live freely. In the first poem of the collection, “A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ,” St. John of the Cross illustrates the soul as a beloved wife wanting her husband back. “This grief that makes me pale / with love, can have no ending / without your presence, every joy transcending.” It explains that through God is the only way to paradise.
—Tiabu Lewis
Carolyne Wright’s Masquerade is aptly titled because she is unmasking the disguises that we all create in our life. In the title poem of the book, an omniscient narrator talks to a man about his lover who has left him home for the evening while she enjoys the “Mardi Gras parade.” This narrator seems to want to be sure that the man discovers her true identity. When the costumed woman “dances away from him,” she herself admits, “Honey, we’re known / by our disguises.” While she chases the music, bright lights, and colors, the narrator (who could even be the man talking to himself) reminds him that his lover is passing “streets where she two-timed you.” Wright’s artful ending—“Here she comes.”— leaves it up to the reader to decide the effect of the narrator’s counsel (or the man’s reflection) upon his life after her return.
—Marialis Nunez
Testament by Luke Hankins challenges conventional ideas about life's significance and leaves a lasting impression on the reader. The poems "Perspective" and "Limit" emphasize finding beauty in the moment and appreciating the small yet significant aspects of our lives. Overall, Hankins' work inspires contemplation and prompts us to embrace and love the imperfect reality that shapes our existence.
In "Perspective," the poet talks about how “immeasurable” the universe is and how never-ending its transformations. It is always changing, transforming energy from one form to another. We, as humans, are also part of this process, just like rocks, water, planets, plants, and animals. The question “And where does your desire for immortality fit / in a cosmos predicated on loss?” suggests we strive for impossible eternity. It is like we are trying to go beyond what nature and the universe intended. The poet suggests to us that there is no escape from this constant change; the only thing we can do is accept and move on in life, as the speaker says "Better to commit yourself to decay, / try to find beauty in it" in the last stanza.
The poem "Limit" starts with “No longer will I see Roman cathedrals, / Tibetan monasteries, Caribbean reefs, / the Grand Canyon. / / I live in a small town / and can’t get out,” suggesting that we cannot take all the paths; we are limited by time and choices. Similar to “Perspective,” what we do is quite small and insignificant compared to the vastness of the universe. However, the surprising twist is that the poet is happy about this. The poem concludes with the line, "It is a very small glory," where the word "glory" rings out ironically at first, but compels the reader to find joy in what we have and do, even if it seems small. The poem encourages us to understand that all humans have limitations of some kind, so the poet advises us to be kind and understanding when evaluating the limits of our own lives. It's a simple yet thoughtful message about finding contentment in the modest but meaningful aspects of our lives.
—Sujan Thapa
Matthew E. Henry, in his bold and striking collection, The Third Renunciation, brings forth a blaze of questioning and introspection through his 83-sonnet composition. This Boston-born poet, known for his insightful explorations of spiritual and societal paradoxes, continues his legacy of challenging religious justifications for social injustices. According to Henry’s website, mehpoeting.com, his multifaceted background, which includes an MFA in poetry, a master’s in religious philosophy, and a doctorate in education, equips him with a unique lens through which he examines doctrinal constructs and their real-world implications. He cleverly manipulates the traditional 14-line sonnet structure to explore themes of divine resistance and human frailty. The structural reliability of the consistent pentameter line contrasts sharply with the content's playfulness and apparent lack of definitive faith, where each poem, prompted by "Say" and complicated by "Maybe," delves into profound existential and spiritual questions. For readers seeking solace in comfortable beliefs, Henry’s work may be challenging, but for those willing to engage in often uncomfortable spiritual wrestling, his poetry provides a profound and thought-provoking companionship.
—Gaurav Tiwari
Julia Lisella’s Our Lively Kingdom explores life's trials and tribulations through a lens that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. This collection contains four sections interlaced with poems that navigate love, children, art, and death. The influence of her Catholic faith can be seen throughout the book too, in references to “Communion,” “saints,” and a continued connection between the living and the dead.
The artistic merit of Lisella's poetry is undeniable. She uses metaphors to provide a sensory experience for the reader. Her poem, “Marriage Bed,” starts by stating, “The marriage bed is a village of strange love.” This unique comparison not only engages and propels the reader to keep reading, but also provides a visual image that distills the complex emotions involved in maintaining a long marriage. The couple is described as at once “seeking comfort” and yet feeling a “small hurt,” and when the “day begins again,” they are “un-remembering” and “un-making” the previous night so that it can be “felt again.” Similarly, each poem in Our Lively Kingdom evokes a visceral response from the reader, so that we all “feel again” the sacred moments of our lives.
—Laura Vasquez