I’m excited to introduce this new online segment, “From the Archives,” where we’ll share and celebrate some selected pieces from the PRISM archives. To start us off, I’ve selected Kyle Okeke’s “Gate of Wonder,” 2nd runner-up for the 2024 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize contest, as chosen by Oliver Baez Bendorf. This poem is a cottonball fever dream, a textural striptease, a pastoral avalanche. I think it will resonate with many readers.| PRISM international
Death by a Thousand Cuts Shashi Bhat Penguin Random House, 2024. Review by Bethany Lake There is an old school of thought in literature to make no mention of technology for fear of dating the written work. In her new collection of short stories, Death by a Thousand Cuts, Shashi Bhat walks the fine line […]| PRISM international
Trading Beauty Secrets with the DeadBy Erina HarrisWolsak & Wynn, 2024 Review by Rosalie Morris Trading Beauty Secrets with the Dead is a new collection of poetry from Edmonton-based author Erina Harris. The collection is a complex celebration of intertextuality, children’s stories, women’s work, and the concept of play. Harris takes a wide variety of […]| PRISM international
echolalia echolaliaJane ShiBrick Books, 2024 Review by Madelaine Caritas Longman After reading the first poem in Jane Shi’s debut, echolalia echolalia, I put down the book and paced in circles. My heart knocked against my chest; my fingers transfigured into vibrating moth wings. I had forgotten language could be so embodied, so gut-hot and defiantly […]| PRISM international
Buzzkill Clamshell Amber Dawn Arsenal Pulp Press Review by Margo LaPierre Pain can limit us. A bed can be a constraint. But in Amber Dawn’s third solo collection of poetry and eighth book with Arsenal Pulp Press, constraint elevates and intensifies. Buzzkill Clamshell opens its first poem, “The Erotics of Chronic Pain,” with an old […]| PRISM international
A blueprint for survivalby Kim TrainorGuernica Editions, 2024 Review by Leah Bobet It’s at the end of one of climate poetry’s emerging tropes — that our inner landscapes and outer ecologies are one thing after all — that A blueprint for survival rolls up its sleeves. The fourth poetry collection from Ralph Gustafson Prize-winner and […]| PRISM international
Prescribee by Chia-Lun ChangNightboat Books, 2022 Review by Nicole Miyashiro “Please bear with me,” Chia-Lun Chang writes in “The Accent Floats,” an early poem in her first full-length collection, Prescribee. Born and raised in Taiwan and living in New York City, Chang travels the immigrant experience in these poems via a nuanced study of interpersonal […]| PRISM international