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The Last Song of the World

January 21, 2025 - By Christos Kalli

A Review of Joseph Fasano's The Last Song of the World (BOA Editions, 2024)

Like a deep breath, like a flower that blooms against the relentless elements of an inhospitable season, Joseph Fasano’s The Last Song of the World begins with “Sudden Hymn in Winter,” a short but powerful poem, functioning almost as the collection’s own epigraph:

What if, after years
of trial,
a love should come
and lay a hand upon you
and say,
this late
your life is not a crime

In the simple language with which he...

New Beers Resolutions

January 10, 2025 - By Marsha Bryant

Are you in a beer slump, do you steer
Clear of tastes unlike those you hold dear?
Well, I have a solution:
New Beers Resolutions!
I tried it; there’s nothing to fear.

1.
If you like a clean lager (no frills),
Here’s a beer that might just fit your bill:
For Rebellion Red Lager
Has a touch of swagger
With sweetness and crispness instilled.

2.
Beer for breakfast? Why not go for sweet
Instead of a savory treat?
Cinnamon Bacon Roll
Just might be your beer goal—
Tastes like pastry that’s fresh off the sheet.

3.
If a pourable Reese’s you seek,
Then you’re in for a...

The Songwriter as Poet. A Conversation with Phil Elverum
(Part Two)

November 14, 2024 - By Jon Hoel, with Phil Elverum

Jon Hoel: The natural world is pretty frequent in your work over the years; in these recent poems, though, there are two terms specifically I wanted to ask you about, “decolonization” and “land back.” Both are ideas many people are likely familiar with, but some might not be. I was curious what these words mean to you and in the context of the Pacific Northwest more broadly?

Phil Elverum: Land back specifically… those are powerful words. The idea of giving all the land back to the people that it was stolen from. Okay, yes. But how? The specifics of that? How do we give North America back? As far as I know, no one is articulating a step-by-step plan, but the spirit of it, the gesture of it, is admirable.

Like my...

Everyday Magic: Ayşegül Savaş’s The Anthropologists

November 7, 2024 - By Maya Kuchiyak

A Review of Ayşegül Savaş's The Anthropologists (Bloomsbury, 2024)

“The green jacket, the ceremonial stones, breakfast with Manu, the Dame on the terrace, and the shapes of poems,” goes Ayşegül Savaş’ magpie-like narrator Asya as she meticulously collects objects and moments with her partner Manu to build their nest, two ex-pats in an unnamed foreign city. In this all-too-relatable search, the very absence of the city’s name throws everything into question: the art of home-making, the mystery of marriage and the complexity of belonging. Feeling at once rootless and filled with promise, the couple ventures to put down the rules of how to live...

The Songwriter as Poet. A Conversation with Phil Elverum
(Part One)

November 5, 2024 - By Jon Hoel, with Phil Elverum

Poems are songs, songs are poems. This dictum may infuriate anyone who has ever penned an editorial on Leonard Cohen’s songs or anyone who was irate when the Nobel committee declared Bob Dylan was literature. Those familiar with the history of songwriting, however, might be inclined to agree with such an equation, knowing their shared origin points.

Anyone presented with a songwriter such as Phil Elverum—who under the moniker Mount Eerie (and The Microphones before that), has been making some of the best music of the last few decades—would be compelled to do so....