Books
Tainted
From the author of Girl comes the next instalment of the multigenre story of a girl growing up in difficult circumstances. Friendships, family relationships, domestic violence, health challenges come into focus in this beautiful, hopeful, heartbreaking, relatable book. "Tainted picks up where Wendy Jett's first book, Girl, left off, wrestling cosmic questions posed by the family, creatures, and spirits accompanying Girl's journey. Tragic and tender, magical as God and real as beans and cornbread, Tainted is a triumph and true to the bone. If you liked Girl, you'll absolutely love Tainted."—Mike Wilson, author of Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic, political poetry for a post-truth world
Boney-Fingered Reach for God
"Boney-Fingered Reach for God is a remarkable debut, a testament to Mark Brown's striking imagination, energetic vocabulary, and devotion to intense love relationships. This three-part work is fueled as well by the poet's appreciation for the bizarre in historical situations, culminating in poems that literally radiate around the life of Marie Curie. Brown's vulnerable investigations of love and his wacky narratives are made all the more vibrant by the poet's metaphorical skill. It is bittersweet that the gracefully sequenced Boney-Fingered Reach for God is also Mark Brown's posthumous signature, the life of a poet cut short."—Molly Peacock, author of A Friend Sails in on a Poem
Scotch Tape World
"Tom C. Hunley, on the evidence of these poems, is as in love with, as he is bewildered by, the world. And although that might seem a common way of being in the world, Hunley's ability to render his love and bewilderment precisely in his poems is unique and necessary. These poems manage to be funny without being cynical, and they manage to be honest without being cynical, and they manage to seem utterly contemporary without being cynical, and each of these achievements is a small miracle and almost an act of defiance. At one point, Hunley tells God, "I want you to fill my mouth / with water and prayer and maybe a jagged little song." I don't know how Hunley is set for water, and I don't know about his spiritual practices, but these poems read like answered prayers." - Shane McCrae