New Reviews: Poetry & Drama

Jane Hirshfield is a wonderful poet (and essayist, although not in this collection) with a wonderfully broad range of interests. Among the poems here is an ode to buttons. She is also a fine reader of her own work. Her voice has a consistently soft texture from which she manages to wring a considerable range of emotion, always sounding as though she is speaking directly and... Read More

Those interested in the Holocaust have probably heard about the German and Austrian Jews who escaped to Shanghai but may not know much about their experiences. This play, recorded from a live performance by Los Angeles Theatre Works, draws on the testimony of some of the refugees in a montage created by Kate McAll to bring that episode to life. There's no point in calling out... Read More

In this smart, sensitive, and faithful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 masterwork, the ill-fated relationships between a mysterious big spender; a young, married socialite; and their bevy of privileged friends are given center stage. Often THE GREAT GATSBY's 1920s glitz, glamour, and excesses are allowed to overshadow the story, but with audio theater all the action is... Read More

This book-length poem delivered by the author is grounded by her experience working at the information desk at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It sprawls out from there to just about everything that has ever crossed the poet's mind. It includes a great deal of art, of course, and family life, and history, but any attempt to summarize it would be not much... Read More

Adrienne Chung narrates this collection of haunting, vivid, playful poems in a tone full of questioning. Many of the poems themselves feel like questions: What do our dreams have to tell us about our lives? How does memory change over time? Is it possible to truly let go of the things that have shaped us? Chung's narration is smooth and rhythmic, beautifully capturing the many... Read More

Ntozake Shange's posthumous unpublished collection of plays, poems, and essays is brought to life by a stellar ensemble of narrators. It begins with Tarana Burke's personal foreword on meeting Shange and leads into Imani Perry's soft-spoken narration. Her even tone encourages reflection by anyone who connects with Shange's work, which has impacted Black women for decades. Each... Read More

Terrance Hayes is a fine poet and a fine reader of his poetry--and this audiobook offers a lovely experience of both. Some of the poems here, particularly the "American sonnets," a formal variation of Hayes's invention, need a little more help than he can give in terms of identifying the structure of lines and stanzas, so those studying the works may want to have the printed... Read More

In much of the best contemporary poetry, beauty of thought is at least as important as beauty of language. Carl Phillips, here reading his own Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, has an ample supply of both, but it is the thinking behind each poem that makes it possible for the language to have power. Nature--in particular, horses--shows up in many of the poems, but what moves... Read More

Themed poetry anthologies built around concrete topics such as children or gardens can contain immense variety. When they are built around feelings, however, they run the risk of being weighed down by the similarity in their works, especially in audio anthologies. So while the poems here are all good and all are read well, their single focus on a sense of wonder makes them... Read More