Chazaro, Alan. This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album, Black Lawrence Press, 2019.
"Chazaro’s poems follow the styling of cartography by defining each poem’s experience, and then interrogating the restrictions between the subject’s borders, like those between setting and individual, boyhood and manhood, music and language, and joy and shame." To read the full review in Jet Fuel Review, click here.
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Hahn, Andrew. God's Boy, Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019.
"Andrew Hahn’s God’s Boy worships poetic craft for its ability to confess the conflict between queerness and Christian tradition, situating language as the tool and space for reclaiming stolen power." To read the full review in Jet Fuel Review, click here.
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Pafunda, Danielle. The Book of Scab, Ricochet Editions, 2018.
"Pafunda delivers a lyrical voice that feels momentarily meta during confessional statements throughout the novel’s investigation on youth: 'Whatever I did, Mom and Dad, I did in the loveless swan’s gut of twilight.'" To read the full review in Jet Fuel Review, click here.
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Quesada, Ruben. Revelations, Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018.
"Ruben Quesada’s Revelations explores the truths in paradox, giving sense and dimension to the word 'revelation' in order to show the astonishment in obtaining a truth often considered exclusive to divine or supernatural law. Quesada constitutes a newfound belief system from doubt, configures the holy with the unholy, and crafts a beautiful juxtaposition between his narrative poems and Cernuda’s lyricism." To read the full review in Jet Fuel Review, click here.
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Karetnick, Jen. The Crossing Over, Split Rock Review, 2019.
"Jen Karetnick’s The Crossing Over is an expedition, repurposing the conceit of a boat to explore the significance of a journey over its destination. The boat is animated, personified, and in some instances, the boat faces a transmutation in order to highlight the importance of what can be carried, and what does the carrying. The transportation of bodies, stories, and morals, is given privilege." To read the full review in Jet Fuel Review, click here.
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Wein, Sam Herschel. Fruit Mansion, Split Lip Press, 2017.
"Fruit Mansion is a collection of abundance, feeling much like home, which is full of confrontation with family, friends, strangers, and society as a whole. Wein’s poems experience a range of situations, taking on personas that struggle and survive on their own." |
Borges Accardi, Millicent. Only More So, Salmon Poetry, 2016.
"Millicent Borges Accardi’s Only More So extends the influence of her poetic voice to share resilience against erasure, surviving even when her poems share a close relationship to loss." To read the full review in Jet Fuel Review, click here.
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Kapri, Britteney Black Rose. Black Queer Hoe, Haymarket Press, 2018.
"Kapri’s collection of poems contains tweets alongside her words, reinforcing her complete experience in upholding a fight against anti-blackness, homophobia, misogyny, and slut-shaming. Kapri’s diction is uncensored and unapologetic, reinforcing the reclamation process each of her poems celebrates, and presenting the liberty in living a life outside of rigid boundaries." |
Chan, Dorothy. Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold, Spork Press, 2018.
"Through the satirical mode in each speaker’s voice, Chan delivers a vivid experience of Chinese-American culture, food, and womanhood. The speaker’s experiences is a realization of sexual manifestation, giving into, controlling, and owning the lustful appetite that develops in many human beings." |
Betts, Tara. Break the Habit, Trio House Press, 2016.
"The purpose in Betts’s language is to fully examine previous experiences, bringing resonance back, and, in a sense, defying the agony of grief. The spiders’ mythology motivates the sharing and passing of narratives from one spider to the next, keeping memories alive, letting the 'echoes' and 'adamant notes' linger and ring, never fading." |
Umansky, Leah. The Barbarous Century, Eyewear Publishing, 2018.
"Umansky’s poems critique the psychological manifestation of latent presuppositions of ethics and morality, especially when concerning women. This framework in the social construction of morality, which is already embedded in society’s reality, stretches into the reality of an individuals’ most inventive creations." To read the full review in Jet Fuel Review, click here.
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DiGiorgio, Emari. Girl Torpedo, Agape Editions, 2018.
"Emari DiGiorgio’s Girl Torpedo is a testament to living and coping with what many people leave unsaid, and it is the speaker(s) in DiGiorgio’s collection of poems who find empowerment in exposing their truths." |
Soto, Christopher. Sad Girl Poems, Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016.
"Soto’s collection of poems is ideal for the reader searching for a method to sublimate feelings of anger, exhaustion, sadness, and despair with living in a cis-heteronormative society that refuses to easily accept the existence of queer and trans people of color. Christopher Soto’s Sad Girl Poems confess and despair, but continue to breathe through the living queer bodies of color, adapting to survive every day." |
Lawson, Shayla. I Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean, Saturnalia Books, 2018.
"Shayla Lawson’s I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean is a magnificent epic narrative on a contemporary artist, envisioning him as a hero-of-sorts. The speaker(s) omnisciently follow Frank Ocean’s persona, not always giving him the full center of attention, but definitely using his persona’s lyrical compositions as a medium to explore personal moments relative to each speaker, giving Frank Ocean a universal grounding in exploring the human experience." |
Vuong, Ocean. Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Copper Canyon Press, 2016.
"Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds is an oscillation of words, ideas, values, beliefs, and morals, relating back to the major human experience, grounding itself in themes of family, gender, sexuality, violence, war, and the accumulation of the 'self.'" |