June 2023 MBR The Poetry Shelf

The Poetry Shelf

Distillations: New Poems
E. Smith Dunlap
Regent Press
www.regentpress.net
9781587906459, $20.00, PB, 84pp

https://www.amazon.com/Distillations-New-Poems-Smith-Dunlap/dp/1587906457

Synopsis: Published by the Regent Press, "Distillations" new book of poetry by Elaine Smith Dunlap provides memorable verse that burnishes the gleam on even quotidian objects and moments. Like the poet author, the poems comprising "Distillations" are unabashedly curious, hearty, and wise.

As a poet, Elaine has taken her time to publish this collection of her verse -- but her timing is good and her memory is ripe. As she expresses, "My shelves are full / Stocked with experience / Bought with choices / And ready / For whatever comes."

Critique: Original, eloquent, lyrical, memorable, "Distillations: New Poems" perfectly showcases the poetry and verse of Elaine Dunlap and is a welcome and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, community, college, and university library Contemporary American Poetry collections.

Editorial Note: Elaine Dunlap has a great deal to say about a great many things and much of it appears in her poetry. 30 years teaching cultural history at a community college in California was only one facet of her quest for experience. Widely traveled in all the usual places, she went further than most exploring India, Antarctica and following the Silk Road from China to Uzbekistan. She now divides her year between London and a suburb of San Francisco fostering a uniquely bi-cultural perspective on her two worlds, especially the difference between traveling by cars or buses. Not a day goes by without her submerging herself in some notable theater, art or musical event. In 2012-13 she was an Olivier judge for alternative theater in London and still enjoys writing unpublished theatre reviews. Current technology makes it possible for her to indulge in frequent photography some of which appears in the pages of her poetry.

This Far North
Jason Tandon
Black Lawrence Press
https://blacklawrencepress.com
9781625570482, $16.95, PB, 85pp

https://www.amazon.com/This-Far-North-Jason-Tandon/dp/1625570481

Synopsis: Poetry (derived from the Greek poiesis, "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language (such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre) to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle. (Wikipedia).

"This Far North" is a slender volume of eloquent, elegant, deftly crafted poems on such sensitive topics of the human experience as death, loss, and grief, as well as imageries ranging from flowers, showers that don't work right, back fences, and a host of other ordinary and familiar things now noticed as extraordinary elements of our lives.

Critique: Now with the publication of poet Jason Tandon's "This Far North (his fifth volume of verse) by a premier publish of contemporary poetry, the Black Lawrence Press, once again he cements his credentials as one of the truly talented contemporary poets of our time. "This Far North" is an especially and unreservedly recommended and endorsed additions to personal reading lists and community/academic library Contemporary American Poetry collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Jason Tandon (https://jasontandon.com) is the author of five books of poetry, including This Far North, The Actual World, Quality of Life, and Give over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Barrow Street, among others. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from Middlebury College, and his M.F.A. from the University of New Hampshire. Since 2008, he has taught in the Arts & Sciences Writing Program at Boston University.

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