Review: Esther Kondo Heller’s “Ar:range:ments” by Matt Martinson

How does one write about the very things that defy language—things like loss, sorrow, not to mention potential words from the past that went unsaid? How does one convey language-defiant notions through language? For Heller, such linguistically impossible truths are conveyed with metaphor and story, but also with silences, approximations, and fragments.
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Review: Uncovering What Drives and Destroys Us in Sara Jaffe’s “Hurricane Envy” by Meredith Boe

The book’s title is derived from the story “Stormchasers,” in which a couple that moved cities constantly compares the two places while trying to establish a routine. They admit to having “hurricane envy” as they realize that a coming storm won’t really impact them, despite their preparations.
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Review of “If Only for a Moment (I’ll Never Be Young Again): Selected Poems of Jaime Gil de Biedma,” (translated by James Nolan) by Stephanie Burt

The book, at its core, follows the speaker’s daily journeys along a rugged mountain road over the course of a year, with the gravel thoroughfare and its environs serving much the way Thoreau’s Walden Pond once did— fueling reflections on humanity in general, and the present moment more specifically.
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Review of Kristin Dykstra’s “Dissonance” by Matt Martinson

This week, ACM is posting book reviews every weekday.

The book, at its core, follows the speaker’s daily journeys along a rugged mountain road over the course of a year, with the gravel thoroughfare and its environs serving much the way Thoreau’s Walden Pond once did— fueling reflections on humanity in general, and the present moment more specifically.
(reviews)