Joshua S. Fullman is Associate Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University. His poems have appeared in The North American Anglican, Poems for Ephesians, The Society of Classical Poets, Ekstasis, and others. His debut book of poetry, Voices of Iona (2022), is available through Resource Publications.
Versing the Mystery. By Christopher Villiers. Waterloo, ON: Arouca Press, 2024. 202 pp. $19.95 (paperback). Poetry has been long believed to hold mystical, even sacred powers. Up until the modern period, it has historically held more reverence and cultural sway than prose. As James Matthew Wilson asserts in The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age…
One step down, my back turned against pear groves As the perfume of orange blossoms drifts On the breeze, mixed memoirs of when we clove Tightly to each other. An anchor lifts, But casually, skirting the floor and primed To fall in the wake of first resistance, And I don’t know if its weight is…
Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds. By James Matthew Wilson. Grove Village, IL: Word on Fire, 2024. 128 pp. $24.99 (hardcover). The current state of poetry in our day is marked by its unanchored and erratic character. As an art form, poetry stands isolated like an unfamiliar relative at the family reunion. We do not…
House of 49 Doors: Entries in a Life. By Laurie Klein. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2024. 114 pp. $14.00 (paper). The prospect of entering a house ranged with 49 doors might seem perplexing, if not daunting, to the most intrepid explorer. One may expect that these primary architectural markers imply a grandiose construction that will…
Wading through Lethe. By Paulette Guerin. Athens, GA: FutureCycle Press, 2022. 84 pp. $15.95 (paper). Greek mythology held that the waters of five distinct rivers ran through the bowels of the underworld. That Paulette Guerin has chosen as her theme the river of Lethe—forgetfulness— illustrates how pervasive has been the Christianization of paganism in the…
The chaste moon cackles over fields of white and pours its pregnant wrath upon a black crepe sky where seems the sun will never rise nor fill its run on this, the longest night. Beneath her blushing falseness tramps a lone and lonely hireling; bit with frost in callouses and cuts, near lost to winter’s…