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More Beers for a Sober October

October 3, 2024 - By Marsha Bryant

I think I can finally stand me
Without a glass or a stein.
– Barton Sutter, “Sober Song”

Well, you know that a Sober October
For this beer reviewer’s a Noper.
Yet again—just for you—
I’ve imbibed more such brews.
Let me be your NA beer decoder.

You can still do your work with these beers,
Fill your glasses and raise them with cheers.
There are flavors galore,
So you might as well pour
One—or three! Here are some to revere.

1.

The Original Clausthaler’s glow
Is so golden. Tastes beery, not faux.
With some sweetness, it feels near
The crispness of Pilsner....

A Return to My Native Country

August 13, 2024 - By Aamer Janbey

A Review of Fadi Azzam, Huddud’s House. Translated by Ghada Alatrash. Northampton: Interlink Publishing, 2024. 
 

What does it mean to truly belong? Is it the soil beneath our feet? Or is it the echoes of our memories, the whispers of our ancestors, and the silent pull of our heritage? In a world fractured by displacement and longing, how do we reconcile the fragments of our identity with places we once called home? Can we ever truly return to these places?

As a twenty-one-year-old Syrian who has not set foot in my homeland for thirteen years, reading Fadi Azzam’s Huddud’s House was an...

Despite the Storm, Sikander’s Witness Stands Tall

July 19, 2024 - By Amal Zaman

“What's the problem of women? Knowledge! What's the problem of women? Their head, that's why they want to cut their head.”
—Nawal El Saadawi

In the early morning of July 8, as Hurricane Beryl cast the coast of Texas in darkness and disarray, a statue was beheaded on the University of Houston campus. This statue—a feminine figure commissioned from globally renowned artist Shahzia Sikander—had become the focal point of a campaign by the Christian anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life. In February 2024, this group, long active in the...

Three for the Fourth

July 3, 2024 - By Marsha Bryant

From the mountains and prairies, to ocean’s white foam:
Hail the beers of America. Let your tastes roam!
‘Twixt Atlantic, Pacific
Come brewers prolific
With tributes for toasting this spacious-skied home.

So gallantly streaming, beers pour
Into glasses and cups for the Fourth.
From the crisp, from the tart,
to the hoppy—the heart
Of the country pumps out brews galore!

Here are three for the Fourth just for you—
A wide-ranging assortment of brew.
One’s classic, one’s play-
ful. Nostalgia holds sway
In the last one I choose to review.

1
Ragged Glory—O long may it wave
With a fresh-hop approach and a fla-
vor that pairs with...

to cast a shadow for each other until we are bones

May 22, 2024 - By k

A review of The Girl Before Her by Line Papin (Kaya Press, 2023)

The road to the laundromat is iced all over and the wind is ruthless, blowing me back to the winter in Massachusetts, to the field of sunflowers, their eight-foot stalks almost depleted of moisture, their beehive heads bent over by snow, yet refusing to touch the ground. Suddenly this image comes to me: i’m running in the snowfield toward somewhere i don’t know, and a flash of light enters the corner of my eye—a silver figure running in my direction. We meet with a hug in the middle of the field (in an open field, everywhere is the middle). We hug without a word, feeling each other through layers and layers...