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McKenzie Lynn Tozan

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McKenzie Lynn Tozan

POET, WRITER, & REVIEWER; MAMA, TEACHER, & VISUAL ARTIST

  • About
    • C.V.
    • Available for Projects
  • Publications
    • Past Readings & Events
  • Portfolio
  • Contact
  • Blogging & Poems
    • My Poems
    • My Writing Challenges
    • Personal Achievements
    • Involved in the Arts
    • Broadsides
    • Readings Attended
    • Writing / Craft
  • Reading
    • Poem of the Day Series
  • Reviews & Interviews
    • Poetry Collections
    • Lyric Essay
    • Fiction
    • Short Fiction
    • YA Literature
    • Memoir
    • Christian
    • Theory-Based
    • Film & Theatre

Category: Reviews & Interviews

In conjunction with reading, I find it extremely important to be able to talk about what I’ve read to a greater extent than “I liked this book” or “I didn’t like this poem.” I find it important to delve deeper, into themes, into intentions, into meanings. I like to refer books more extensively in this matter so that the review is less about whether I liked the book or not, and more about the WHY of the matter. Those reviews will be posted here.

Via the main REVIEWS page, you can view ALL reviews that I have posted. However, for ease, these reviews are also categorized by genre. If you are searching for, say, reviews of poetry collections, simply hover your mouse over the REVIEWS button and select the “Poetry Collection” option.

Nov 5
McKenzie

“Black Light / Her Name in a Cup”: Scenes & Impressions: Reading David Dodd Lee’s Animalities

  David Dodd Lee has been there with me since the beginning—not since the beginning of my reading and loving poetry, but of my writing poetry and taking that progress seriously. Of taking poetry seriously, and the idea that there was something to be taken from poetry, to be understood, to be had. Like a…

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Feb 18
McKenzie

Her Heart of Hearts & The Art of Discovery: Reading Jackie Haze’s Borderless

  When I think of highways, I think of other cars, the open road, corn fields. I think of how limitless, how borderless these highways can be, allowing us to go straight, turn left, or turn right, as we please. But there are also barricades: toll roads, No U-Turn signs, and Detour Turn Left/Right; these…

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Feb 8
McKenzie

‘This is Not a Pipe’: The Powers of Nature & Grief over Perception & Definition: Reading Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

  I don’t know about you, but in my mind, perception and grief are united. This is not to say that one cannot exist without the other, but only that our perceptions vary based on our state of mind—especially when we are talking about grief. On an average, typical day, we know very well that…

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Nov 7
McKenzie

Dialogue of the Body, Dialogue of a Storm: Reading Sandra Marchetti’s Confluence

  Sometimes I find myself thinking so much about what poetry is or what it can do that I forget to think about how it can make me feel. Perhaps that is the sign of a lesser poetry, a poetry with holes in it: one that goes through the motions, the mechanics, of writing, but…

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Oct 21
McKenzie

“Look Where That Has Gotten Me”: The Potential Self-Awareness & Honesty of Poetry: Reading Tracey Knapp’s Mouth

  Let me begin by playing a round of Two Truths and a Lie… We all know how this works, right? The speaker shares two truths about themselves, and a lie, but the lie must not be easily distinguished from the two truths, and the other players are supposed to guess which statement is a…

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Oct 10
McKenzie

The Rhythm of Reading & Hearing Poetry: Reading Three Beautiful Collections by Susan Lewis

  Do you ever find yourself in a reading slump? Or too unreasonably busy to even consider finding a way to fit reading in? And when you finally do have the time and energy, do you find yourself searching for that writing style that just throws you back in, every time? Well, this summer, as…

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Jun 11
McKenzie

The Division of History & Fiction: Reading Kristy Cambron’s A Sparrow in Terezin

  In Kristy Cambron’s A Sparrow in Terezin, the second novel in the A Hidden Masterpiece Novel series, two central female characters, Sera James and Kája Makovsky, bridge the gap between a past genocide and a present-day criminal investigation. Kája previously fled her home, escaping the Holocaust; Sera is dealing with a situation that may…

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Apr 18
McKenzie

“The Way Poetry Evokes Things / Only Potentially There”: Perception, Identity & Heritage: Reading Allan Peterson’s Precarious

  In the quiet moments, when we stop to take a breath and think, we may realize that all of our thoughts, our questions, our hopes, are connected—that is to say, back to two main ideas: Where am I going? and Where have I been? Again, as if to say something toward longevity, What am…

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Mar 28
McKenzie

To the New York Times Book Review, Domestic Violence is Never Funny: A Response Review of Jill Alexander Essbaum’s Hausfrau

  Readers, let me explain first that I am not one to contest reviews, whether overly positive, unconstructively negative, or anything in-between. But when a review makes a claim that is societally problematic, I have to respond—not to the review as a whole, but to its thematic issues. A week ago, a review appeared for…

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Mar 28
McKenzie

The Waking, Danger & Consent of the Body & Love: Reading Lisa Mangini’s Bird Watching at the End of the World

  When we spend a lot of time reading poetry, I know we can become critical of the pursuit of love and the defining of boundaries in poetry—but sometimes, a poet chooses to address these exact topics, and they get everything right: they create something new, something meaningful, something entirely worth reading, whether it is…

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mckenzielynntozan

mckenzielynntozan

McKenzie Lynn Tozan lives and writes in South Bend, Indiana, where she works as the Departmental Secretary of English and World Language Studies at Indiana University South Bend, and remains closely affiliated with 42 Miles Press, New Issues Poetry and Prose, and Wolfson Press. She previously received her MFA in Poetry from Western Michigan University, where she worked as the Layout and Design Editor for New Issues Poetry and Prose and as an Assistant Editor of Poetry for Third Coast. Her poems have appeared in Encore Magazine, Sleet Magazine, Rogue Agent, Thank You for Swallowing, Whale Road Review, The James Franco Review, The Birds We Piled Loosely, and Analecta; and her book reviews have appeared on her website and on The Rumpus. She lives with her husband, their daughter, and three cats. For more, visit www.mckenzielynntozan.com.

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Poets

  • Carrie Oeding
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  • Charmi Keranen
  • Christine Swint
  • Claire Becker
  • Dan Kaplan
  • David Dodd Lee
  • Diane Lockward
  • Eric Duenez
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  • Jean Valentine
  • Jeff Tatay
  • Joanna Penn Cooper
  • John Gallaher
  • Julie Cohen
  • Laura Kochman
  • Louise Mathias
  • Lucia Perillo
  • Matt Henry
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  • Neil Kelly
  • Rachel Barrett
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  • Sandra Beasley
  • Susan Rich
  • Tom Holmes
  • Vince Bauters
  • Zachary Schomburg

Fiction Writers

  • Aimee Bender
  • Alissa Nutting
  • Ander Monson
  • Anne Germanacos
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  • Caitlin Horrocks
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  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Claire Keegan
  • Danielle Dutton
  • Darrin Doyle
  • Dubravka Ugresic
  • Eric Bosse
  • Espido Freire
  • Greg Gerke
  • Gretchen Henderson
  • Jean Thompson
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  • Kate Bernheimer
  • Kelcey Parker
  • Lydia Davis
  • Margaret Chapman
  • Matt Bell
  • Matthew Klam
  • Miranda July
  • Nicole Louise Reid
  • Roxane Gay
  • Tina May Hall
  • Tom McGuane
  • Veronique Tadjo

Literary Magazines

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Literary Presses

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Online Publications

  • 42opus
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  • Poem-a-Day / Poets.org
  • Pool
  • Quarterly West
  • Shampoo Poetry
  • Sixth Finch
  • The Offending Adam
  • The Rumpus
  • Verse Daily

Literary Presses

  • 42 Miles Press
  • Alice James Books
  • Apostrophe
  • Argos Books
  • Black Ocean
  • Cooper Dillon Books
  • Copper Canyon Press
  • Edge Books
  • Flood Editions
  • Four Way Books
  • Graywolf Press
  • Kore Press
  • McSweeney’s
  • New Issues Poetry & Prose
  • Sarabande Books
  • Tin House

Literary Resources

  • AWP
  • IUSB Creative Writing
  • Kalamazoo Book Arts Center
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  • National Poetry Month
  • Poets & Writers
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  • The Constant Critic

Artistry

  • Christopher McKenney
  • Emily Hanako Momohara
  • Holly Spring Photography
  • Holly Spring / Violet Spring Project
  • Salvador Dali
  • SethSnap
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