Book Reviews

  • Sad Animal by Joshua McKinney reviewed by Lynn deTurk

    Joshua McKinney exhibits an awareness of the world and examines everyday fears, both personal and existential, in his latest book, Sad Animal,
    Plume Issue #168 August 2025
  • Site Specific: New & Selected Poems by Elaine Sexton reviewed by Ann Van Buren

    It is not often that a poet’s body of work merits a retrospective collection. Elaine Sexton’s does.
    Plume Issue #168 August 2025
  • Adrie Kusserow’s “The Trauma Mantras” reviewed by Chard deNiord

    In a series of sixty-six prose poems that concatenate as memorable “reports” on her journeys from her home in Underhill, Vermont to Bhutan, Dharmsala, India...
    Plume Issue #167 July 2025
  • “Last Day on Earth in the Eternal City” by Angie Estes reviewed by Jane Zwart

    Chances are that you don’t need Angie Estes to tell you that our experience of time is a hotbed for paradox: that a life of ordinary duration will feel sometimes too short
    Plume Issue #166 June 2025
  • Do I Dream or Wake? Longer poems by DeWitt Henry reviewed by Susan Isla Tepper

    After finishing DeWitt Henry’s new poetry book Do I Dream Or Wake?
    Plume Issue #165 May 2025
  • Virginia Konchan’s “Requiem” reviewed by Heather Treseler

    “I have already faced The Worst… [and] can enjoy life simply for what it is: a continuous job,” Sylvia Plath wrote
    Plume Issue #164 April 2025
  • Aaron Shurin’s “Black Roses” reviewed by Timothy Liu

    When I was born ages ago, little did I know that a strapping 18 year-old soon-to-be poet would be walking into his first gay bar in San Francisco.
    Plume Issue #163 March 2025
  • Geffrey Davis’s “One Wild Word Away” reviewed by P.W. Bridgman

    Trauma is “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower” of Geffrey Davis’s poetry
    Plume Issue #162 February 2025
  • Timothy Liu reviews “Queer”, a film directed by Luca Guadagnino

    Luca Guadagnino’s latest creation, Queer, is a visual poem from a master filmmaker.
    Plume Issue #161 January 2025
  • Sidetracks by Bei Dao Reviewed by Christian Detisch

    I have set for myself what I now realize is an impossible task: reviewing Bei Dao.
    Plume Issue #160 December 2024
  • Sam Sax’s “Pig” reviewed by Timothy Liu

    Full disclosure: his latest book is overwhelming, a glutfest. Imagine walking into a restaurant and ordering off an eighty-plus-page menu that only serves some concoction of pork for every course offered (including dessert!).
    Plume Issue #159 November 2024
  • Susan L. Leary’s “Dressing the Bear” reviewed by Jane Zwart

    Brian is on every page thereafter, too.
    Plume Issue #158 October 2024