Mad Reviews : Archives

Farts and Daydreams (Joseph Farley, Dumpster Fire Press, 2022) At any time it shouldn’t be a problem to be accountable for ourselves and the waves we feel inside our own minds. But since we’ve been our own basic problems for all our fortunate lives, those problems weigh as much as our bones and we grow to carry them naturally. “There …

Knives on a Table by Pete Mladinic Better Than Starbucks Publications (August 9, 2021) Available at Lulu Here is a collection, recently released by one of our Contributing Poets, Knives on a Table by Pete Mladinic. Pete has been a Contributing Poet since November of 2020. Poems from this collection that were previously posted on Mad Swirl are “Among Women …

I Garden Weeds by Ethan Goffman Cyberwit.net (October 25, 2021) Available at Amazon Imagine a wry resignation to the inevitability of death, time, and change. A calico moment of enlightenment when cat jumps in lap at the strike of a gong. Imagine a morbid fascination with spirals; the spinning of galaxies, hurricanes, dishwater circling the drain. Imagine finding a balance …

Hesitancies by Sanjeev Sethi CLASSIX (July, 2021) Available at Amazon I read Hesitancies, front to back, for the first time while on vacation in the first half of August. We were relaxing in the Caribbean and reading this collection fell right into the easy groove of random associations; tied to sun, sand, rum-based beverages, and introspection. I have read it …

Diacritics of Desire by Nikita Parik Hawakal Publishers (April, 2019) Available at Amazon The foreword of Nikita Parik’s collection, Diacritics of Desire, states, “The proliferation of young and talented Indian poets writing in English in recent times is truly remarkable. It is as if the sluice gates have been raised and the literary landscape is awash with youthful poetry that …

Shop Talk by Tanner Paul Tanner (October 15, 2019) Available at Amazon Paul Tanner’s book, Shop Talk, comes at you directly. It’s safe to assume that the writer of these poems either works in a shop or has worked in a shop. From here on in I’m going to refer to the writer as Tanner. Having dealt with people directly, …

Osmosis by Debarshi Mitra Hawakal Publishers (June 5, 2020) Available at Amazon In the introduction of Debarshi Mitra’s poetry collection, Osmosis, the author tells us that this book represents his attempt to crystallize the “moment,” and that this impulse stems directly from his interest in Zen Buddhism and physics. Being interested in how science and spirituality connect and intersect, I …

Words for Things Left Unsaid by Ethan Goffman Kelsay Books (March 7, 2020) Available at Amazon What stands out almost immediately about Ethan Goffman’s poetry collection Words for Things Left Unsaid, is that his poems often read like speculative fiction, asking what-if questions about reality, science, and history. In one of the opening poems, “Taxonomy of History,” Goffman writes: There …

Escape from Planet Crouton by Wayne F. Burke LUCHADOR Press (December 24, 2019) Available at Amazon Since we run in some of the same writing circles, I’ve known and loved Wayne F. Burke’s poetry for several years now. To my ears, Burke’s poems tell very American stories. They read like Merle Haggard and John Prine songs, briefly told and with …

Jumpers from the Belfry Tower by Ryan Quinn Flanagan Pski’s Porch (December 19, 2019) Available at Amazon Delighted to have just read Ryan Quinn Flanagan’s (RQF’s) Jumpers from the Belfry Tower. And having previously reviewed RQF’s Return to Vegas Poems for Mad Swirl, I feel like I’m becoming a scholar of RQF’s work. Watch out RQF, next I’m writing your …