by McKenzie | Nov 7, 2015 | Poetry Collections, Reviews
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...
by McKenzie | Oct 21, 2015 | Poetry Collections, Reviews
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...
by McKenzie | Oct 10, 2015 | Poetry Collections, Reviews
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...
by McKenzie | Apr 18, 2015 | Poetry Collections, Reviews
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...
by McKenzie | Mar 28, 2015 | Poetry Collections, Reviews
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...
by McKenzie | Mar 27, 2015 | Poetry Collections, Reviews
Here I am, attempting to think of what to say, but my coffee spilled, and it made such a lovely and dark display across my table. This is the sort of mindset in which Shawnte Orion places me: an area of in-the-moment appreciation, the odd humor of something...