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August 17, 2023 - By Lara Stecewycz

A Review of The Long Field: Wales and the Presence of Absence by Pam Petro (Little Toller [UK], 2023)

In her memoir The Long Field, Pamela Petro reflects on her early adult years, which were spent in Wales redefining old notions of home and rediscovering herself, through a quiet exploration of her own sexuality and a distant, closeted relationship with her parents. The book follows a semi-chronological narrative, which frequently jumps forward to the stories and mindset of a mature Petro, learning how to shape her life and surroundings, and then back to young Petro, still in search of herself. What ties...

In Defense of IPAs: A Limerick Manifesto

August 3, 2023 - By Marsha Bryant

But I like it
Because it is bitter
—Stephen Crane

It’s audaciously hoppy for me!
Bring on bitterest beer ecstasies!
They’re not one big “hop bomb.”
Brewers craft, with aplomb,
The hop spectrum. Such badassery!

Some fear hops and endeavor to slay
Every tongue-biting flavor away
With juicification—
An abomination!
Give me robustly bold IPAs!

If your tongue is too weak, step aside!
I advise that you best not deride
Those of sturdier stuff: For we’re all tough enough
To drink beers where the bitter abides.

1.
Stone’s Delicious is IPA bliss—
Amply hoppy, with citrusy kiss.
O you’ll relish each...

Buoyant Beers & Light Limericks: A Summer Sip-Along

June 16, 2023 - By Marsha Bryant

The incredible lightness of beering,
So refreshing with summertime nearing!
O they’ll flow flavorfully
With their low ABVs
When the afternoon heatwaves start searing.
 

#1
Take an Air Bath when temperatures rise.
Finely bubbled, its bite will surprise
You with tongue-tingling zip
To enliven each sip
Of this Session so brightly devised.
 

#2
A drinkable language that’s clear-
ly straw-colored, delightful Kölsch beer
Is so crushable, fruity,
and lightly hopped: we
Can keep cool in this time of the year.
 

#3
Do you like your beer juicy with haze,
Seek some lightness amidst NEIPA craze?
Just a kiss of the hops...

perennial fashion presence falling

June 12, 2023 - By Michael Thurston

A Review of perennial fashion presence falling by Fred Moten (Wave Books, 2023)

I’m going to be straight with you: in important ways, this book might not be for you. You might be, as I suspect I sometimes am, inadvertently but consequentially, one of the motherfuckers addressed in “are you one of these motherfuckers?” Which is to say one of those readers who frames and interprets Black experience past and present through the scrims and frames of ideological whiteness. In something of an ars poetica (for this volume and for much of this brilliant poet/critic/theorist’s work), Moten writes:

when...

Whale

June 7, 2023 - By Ellie Eberlee

A Review of Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, Translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim (Archipelago Books, 2023)

“Stories,” writes Cheon Myeong-kwan near the end of his lush and sprawling Whale, “are an exploration into a life filled with injustice.” Translated from the original Korean by Chi-Young Kim and shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize, Myeong-kwan’s second novel explores the unjust life of Chunhui, a 27-year-old-woman nine days out of prison for arson and mass murder she may or may not have committed.

The novel’s prologue returns Chunhui to her family’s previously thriving, now deserted brickyard...