Emmy likes to read literary fiction, poetry, essays, and children's books, but can be tempted into reading most anything else. As a child, she pretty much ruined her eyesight by reading too much and it shows no sign of improving.
Is life too much? Too little? Do you feel numb? Do you wish for new words to pound through your chest, to fall into some unknown? Downum's poetry creates a new reality visceral and bloody with all the stillness of a clear lake (and enjambment that will make you appreciate the weight of the line like never before.) Reading this book is something like wiggling your hand between your ribs to briefly squeeze your own heart, then release, slow and strong. An enrapturing reading experience!
I can't get over how incredibly Rosal uses sound in these poems! A collection sweeping in both a grand sense of traversing space and time but also in the sense of gathering all the tiny shards of memory into heaps of lip-numbing, chest-rumbling poems. Rosal has also given up on the period it seems, letting the lines flow with a muscular quality I loved. Read these poems out loud to get shivers of joy!
Written in short, delicious chapters, this tangle with sisterhood lodged in my chest as I read. Every sentence reshapes the mundane bits of life through the the heart-tugging questions of what faith means and where we find it, whether that's in a bright green halfway house, a donut shop, or a church filled with feathers just to make someone laugh. Gorgeous!
Some might call Hershel of Ostropol the original Ghostbuster because what else do you call someone who is charged with ridding an ancient synagogue of a host of nasty goblins just in time for Hanukkah? Hershel's bravery and wit are true but these goblins really hate Hanukkah, so hijinks do ensue. I've been reading this book since before I could actually read words and was just a kid in my mom's lap turning the pages, and it's still a favorite now!
There's something about islands. In the islands of Popisho everything is brighter, more delicious, and the people are more magical, growing lungs on their hips or crying hummingbirds or instantly knowing what to cook for any person. If you're aching to travel but can't, read this book! I felt immediately at home in this unreal community, learning words I couldn't define but by the end somehow understood.
