Cats, Coffee, and Comfort
Liz Ahl’s poetry delights me. This is her newest poetry book. This is an exceptional collection of poetry that explores the meaning of community. This is a book about boundaries; those that can be measured, and those that cannot. This book is about breaking free from the expectations of others in a community, and settling down within the comfort of your own home.
Hobblebush Books. 2017. 91 pages.
Lifeboat is Catharine Clark-Sayles’ second book of poetry.
This book itself is a lifeboat. Poetry does its best when it prevents a person from drowning in a sea of uncertainty and doubt. Poetry well wrtten changes us forever. This book is full of the poetry of purpose.
Tebot Bach. 2012. 62 pages.
J Diego Frey writes poetry that grabs you by the ears and makes you listen to the humor in our world. The man can find humor in a colonoscopy, food posioning, or the destruction of Reno. Crossing the streams of poetry and humor is a hard and wet experience. J Diego Frey’s second book of poetry delivers us safely and softly. I’m not sure how the eggs cracked.
Conundrum Press. 2015. 57 pages.
There is an intensity in her love letters that Lynn Marie Houston brings directly to us in this book of war poetry. Poem by poem, the story is told. She waits for his return. She writes. Can the bond of love, which is strong, last beyond a deployment in Afghanistan? There is much to be understood here, poem by poem. There is much to convey when a poet is unguarded.
The Heartland Review Press. 2017. 34 pages.
Tina Barr’s Kaleidoscope is a round tube of truth that I hold towards the light. Disruptive and colorful images that I might not want to view – but so well composed that my eye is brought forward to the edge again. And again, to the truth. Disruptive truth.
Iris Press. 2015. 84 pages.