Reviewing New Poetry for the Gettysburg Review - May 31, 2017

Last weekend, during a Memorial Day trip to Chicago, I had the good fortune to hear Deborah Landau read from The Uses of the Body at the Poetry Foundation. She was accompanied on stage by Inna Faliks, a wonderful pianist. Landau would read a few poems, Falik would play Bach or Liszt, and together they made for an exquisite evening.

I’d first encountered Landau’s work while writing an essay-review for the Gettysburg Review, a piece that appear in the summer of 2016. I also looked at Daniel Albergotti’s Millennial Teeth, Matthea Harvey’s If the Tabloids Are True, What Are You? and Peter Balakian’s Ozone Journal, focusing on the relationship between poetry and the news. The title of the essay: “Headlines and Linebreaks.”  

I’m happy to report that I’ve finished another essay-review for Gettysburg, “We Wear the Mask,” which will appear in the coming months. The books under consideration? Maureen McLane’s Mz N: the serial, Shane McCrae’s The Animal Too Big to Kill, and Tyehimba Jess’s Olio. All make use of personas.

My thanks to Mark Drew, the editor at Gettysburg, for this fine opportunity.