SRPR Review Essay

Each issue of SRPR from 2010-2023 concluded with “The SRPR Review Essay,” a long analytical essay (20-25 pp) that blurs the line between the short, opinion-driven review and the academic article. Each review essay was written by an established poet-critic who situates 3-5 new books of contemporary poetry within relevant conversations concerning poetry and poetics. At least half of the books discussed in the review essay were published by small presses. SRPR thanks Michael Theune for being the Review Essay Editor and curating excellent critical content on contemporary poetry and poetics. This is an archive of these review essays:

Issue 48.2: Poetics of Entanglement: Recent Interventions in Gay Shame and Stigma by Phil Spotswood. A review of books by Aaron Smith, Justin Phillip Reed, and Patrick Kindig. (entire text)

Issue 48.1: Exposure, Confinement, Haunting: Visual Poetry in the Twenty-First Century by Joanne Diaz. A review of books by Katy Didden, Sarah J. Sloat, and Mai Der Vang. (entire text)

Issue 47.2: “Dreams of Growing to Rock a Rhyme”: Tradition and Experiment in Recent American Sonnets by Brian Brodeur. A review of books by Caki Wilkinson, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Matthew Buckley Smith, Alexis Sears, and John Murillo. (entire text)

Issue 47.1: Redefining Our Futures: Recent Abolitionist Poetic Practice by Allison Serraes. A review of books by DaMaris B. Hill, Mahogany L. Brown, and Shayla Lawz. (entire text)

Issue 46.2: Seriousness, Humorously by Andrew Dorkin. A review of books by Joan Retallack, Morgan Parker, and Fred Moten. (entire text)

Issue 46.1: Poems in a Pandemic by contributing authors Sesshu Foster, Amy Gaeta, Anna Leahy, Timothy Liu, Mark Wallace, and Jillian Weise. Reviewing a book by Alice Quinn. (entire text)

Issue 45.2: Black Poems, White Space by Michael Theune. A review of books by Ashley M. Jones, francine j. harris, and Don Paterson. (entire text)

Issue 45.1: Disciples of Baldwin by Korey Williams. A review of books by Malcolm Tariq, Jericho Brown, and Carl Phillips. (entire text)

Issue 44.2: Migrant Poets Amid the Mire of Republican Antinepantla by Diego Báez. A review of books by Javier Zamora, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, and Jan-Henry Gray. (entire text)

Issue 44.1: Form Dysfunction by Spencer Short. A review of books by Caroline Levine, Terrence Hayes, and Frederick Seidel. (entire text)

Issue 43.2: Taking Joy in Keats, the Comedian Poet by Brian Rejack. A review of books by Dan Beachy-Quick and Eric G. Wilson. (entire text)

Issue 43.1: Bad Plath: Excess and Theatricality in Contemporary Poetry by Johannes Göransson. A review of books by Cynthia Cruz, Brooke Ellsworth, Moss Angel the Undying, and Sara Tuss Efrik. (entire text)

Issue 42.2: The Body Apocalyptic: Recent Books from the Anthropocene by Jennifer Rane Hancock. A review of books by Angela Hume, Meghan Privitello, and Sam Witt. (entire text)

Issue 42.1: The Transcendental Circuit by Joshua Corey. A review of books by Ben Lerner, Claudia Rankine, Reginald Gibbons, and Kirill Medvedev. (entire text)

Issue 41.2: To Write the Larger Scene: Notes on the New Political Lyric by John Beer. A review of books by Nathaniel Mackey, Bhanu Kapil, Melissa Buzzeo, and Tyehimba Jess. (entire text)

Issue 41.1: The New in the News: Poetry, Authenticity, and the Historical Imagination by Bruce Bond. A review of books by Karen Solie and Adam Kirsch. (entire text) 

Issue 40.2: Evolution and Apophatic Thought: A Theological Poetics for Our Time by Jerry Harp. A review of books by Eric Pankey, Michael Robbins, and Kimberly Johnson.

Issue 40.1: D U.S. KS by Aracelis Girmay. A review of books by Eduardo C. Corral, Claudia Rankine, and Jean Valentine. (excerpt)

Issue 39.2: Inventions of a Barbarous Age: Contemporary Rhyme in Poetry by Robert Archambeau. A review of books by R. S. Gwynn, Michael Robbins, Amanda Smeltz, and Ben Mazer. (excerpt)

Issue 39.1: Should "I Quit // Making This Poem"? Chris Dombrowsky’s narrative-style review essay on The Ecopoetry Anthology (Editors Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street) and The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Editors Joshua Corey, SRPR 37.1 Featured Poet, and G. C. Waldrep). (excerpt)

Issue 38.2: Portals, Placentas, and the Corpus Entire: Three Takes on Ekphrasis by Katy Didden. A review of books by David Wojahn, Forrest Gander, and Sarah Fox. (excerpt)

Issue 38.1: The Golden Age of American Poetry Is Now by Seth Abramson. A review of new books by Anthony Madrid, Chelsey Minnis, and Matt Hart. (entire essay)

Issue 37.2: Torture Memos: Tracing Violence in Contemporary U.S. Poetry by Joyelle McSweeney. A review of new books by Richard Greenfield, Ben Kopel, and Khadijah Queen. (excerpt)

Issue 37.1: Bridging the Distance: Documentation and Disappearance in Performatic Poetry by Becca Klaver. A review of new books by Cecilia Vicuña, Kaia Sand, and Anne Carson. (excerpt)

Issue 36.2: Raising the Net by Michael Theune. A review of new books by Jeff Hilson, Karla Kelsey, Nick Demske, and Joshua Corey. (excerpt)

Issue 36.1: Dressed by Fire by Judith Harris. A review of new books by Jeanne Marie Beaumont and Duriel E. Harris. (excerpt)

Issue 35.2: Like Animals, Like Love by Andrew Osborn. A review of new books by Peter Campion, David Baker, and Melissa Range. (excerpt)

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