Book Reviews – Michigan Quarterly Review

Book Reviews

An image of the book cover of Fady Joudah's "[...]: Poems" laid over a black-orange background

“Who is Without Echo?”: The Future Reader of Fady Joudah’s […]

[…] A continuation … a redaction … a conversation in process…the message that announces its hesitation—three blinking dots as a correspondent composes a response. Even before opening Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah’s latest collection, its pictographic title […] invites the reader to question their own reading practices. The book rebukes easy articulation, its title a […]

“Who is Without Echo?”: The Future Reader of Fady Joudah’s […] Read More »

[…] A continuation … a redaction … a conversation in process…the message that announces its hesitation—three blinking dots as a correspondent composes a response. Even before opening Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah’s latest collection, its pictographic title […] invites the reader to question their own reading practices. The book rebukes easy articulation, its title a

Cover image of Caroline New Harper's "A History of Half-Birds" set against a green-blue background

Learning “how / to make a house of our ruin”: A Review of Caroline Harper New’s A History of Half-Birds

“What would any of us do / if freed?”  So asks Caroline Harper New in her debut collection A History of Half-Birds, winner of the 2023 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry. The poems here, both intimate and inquisitive, both personal and public, seethe with life in all its myriad forms: carob seeds “so consistently shaped

Learning “how / to make a house of our ruin”: A Review of Caroline Harper New’s A History of Half-Birds Read More »

“What would any of us do / if freed?”  So asks Caroline Harper New in her debut collection A History of Half-Birds, winner of the 2023 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry. The poems here, both intimate and inquisitive, both personal and public, seethe with life in all its myriad forms: carob seeds “so consistently shaped

Cover of Elaine Castillo's "How To Read Now" set over a red background

Beyond the Page: Decolonial Reading in How To Read Now

Before the stage at Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, I scribbled notes while Elaine Castillo crossed her legs and shared excerpts from her latest essay collection, How to Read Now. Under the soft spotlights, her critical reflections and sharp sarcasm captivated the audience. I found myself humming and nodding in agreement as Castillo deftly articulated many

Beyond the Page: Decolonial Reading in How To Read Now Read More »

Before the stage at Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, I scribbled notes while Elaine Castillo crossed her legs and shared excerpts from her latest essay collection, How to Read Now. Under the soft spotlights, her critical reflections and sharp sarcasm captivated the audience. I found myself humming and nodding in agreement as Castillo deftly articulated many

Cover of Jennifer Grotz's "Still Falling: Poems" set over a black-orange background

Conversion’s Balance: On Jennifer Grotz’s Still Falling

The greatest gain that ere I knew/ Was made in the blackness of the night– St. John of the Cross There are at least two renderings of Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul, which was first commissioned in 1599 by a Roman treasurer, Tiberio Cerasi, for his familial chapel in the Santa Maria del Popolo. The

Conversion’s Balance: On Jennifer Grotz’s Still Falling Read More »

The greatest gain that ere I knew/ Was made in the blackness of the night– St. John of the Cross There are at least two renderings of Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul, which was first commissioned in 1599 by a Roman treasurer, Tiberio Cerasi, for his familial chapel in the Santa Maria del Popolo. The

The cover of Jennifer Grotz's "Still Falling: Poems" set over a black-orange background.

Language Plays God: A review of Hypergraphia and Other Failed Attempts at Paradise by Jennifer Metsker

In Hypergraphia and Other Failed Attempts at Paradise, Jennifer Metsker gives us over to a mind that makes and unmakes the world. Metsker’s speaker revels in sensory experience even as she troubles the notion that one’s senses are a pathway to truth. While the speaker leads us through a vivid landscape of dead pets and

Language Plays God: A review of Hypergraphia and Other Failed Attempts at Paradise by Jennifer Metsker Read More »

In Hypergraphia and Other Failed Attempts at Paradise, Jennifer Metsker gives us over to a mind that makes and unmakes the world. Metsker’s speaker revels in sensory experience even as she troubles the notion that one’s senses are a pathway to truth. While the speaker leads us through a vivid landscape of dead pets and

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