SELECTED REVIEWS & ENGAGEMENTS IN GALATEA RESURRECTS!

A major project in the offing is a Selected Reviews & Engagements in Galatea Resurrects (GR) that will be edited by master anthologist and poet John Bloomberg-Rissman (his last anthology was BARBARIC, VAST & WILD with coeditor Jerome Rothenberg, the Vol. 5 in the series POEMS FOR THE MILLENIUM). John, also a former master librarian!, is reviewing eleven years of GR reviews and choosing those with not just intellectual rigor but which befit the “spirit” of Galatea Resurrects, which is—to be obvious—quite different from most review journals (Hah). The Art here is not just the poems but the responses to them.

Anyway, I’m very excited by this project which looks to near 800 pages. John’s reviewed 10-15% of the reviews so far.  If you take a look at some of the choices (below) from GR’s early years, I think you’ll agree that we’ve some of the best poet-critics involved in reviewing or engaging with some of the finest, even when relatively obscure, poetry publications.  Where possible, we will be including more than one review of the same author because … that’s just one of the unique ways in which Galatea Resurrects rolls…. All of the choices are John’s and can I just say I’m relieved I and MOM(!) made his cut from the early years!

John observes, “Kudos on such a fine publication. I wonder if even you realize how good it is.”  Looking at the sampling below, I confess that, yes, I hadn’t realized “how good it is!”

But I can’t take credit for the reviewers’ generosity and work—they were/are all volunteers for the project! As ever, Thank you so much reviewers! And, but of course, Thank you to the poets!

John adds, “I really like that I am not only collecting together many outstanding reviews but I am also in a certain way telling the story of the ‘era’ in which they were written, as it is reflected in the reviewers' concerns, etc.” I’m glad John caught that—this notion of doing a review without incorporating the reviewer—as if the response to a poem is separate from the identity of the respondent—has always seemed iffy to me, notwithstanding traditional How-To’s of doing a review.

Anyway, the good news is you can still be part of this Selected! Also to be considered will be reviews published in 2017, and we have five more months to go!  I'm still taking reviews for the usual issues. You can review any poetry or poetry-related book on your shelf or at your local library, or go HERE if you’d like a review copy(ies)!

Here’s a sampling of what will appear from GR’s early years (assuming we get permissions etc.)—worth noting are the publishers, which reflects my belief that much art-expanding poetry are at smaller, indie poetry presses:

ERNESTO PRIEGO reviews

Holiday in Tikrit, by Keith Tuma & jUStin!katKO

(Critical Documents, Oxford, Ohio: 2005)

THOMAS FINK reviews:

Bird & Forest by Brent Cunningham

(Ugly Duckling Presse, 2005)

HEATHER NAGAMI reviews

Unnecessary Roughness by Shin Yu Pai

(xPress(ed), 2005)

LENY MENDOZA STROBEL reviews

ALCHEMIES OF DISTANCE by Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard

(Honolulu,Hawaii: Subpress/Tinfish / Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies, 2001)

JENNIFER BARTLETT reviews

like the wind loves a window by Andrea Baker

(Slope Editions, 2005)

ABIGAIL LICAD reviews

Pinoy Poetics, A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino-American Poetics Edited by Nick Carbo

(Meritage Press, St. Helena & San Francisco, 2004)

BARRY SCHWABSKY reviews

Mercury by Simon Smith

(Salt Publishing, Cambridge, UK, 2006)

MARY JO MALO reviews

 “phenomena of interference” by Steve Dalachinsky & Matthew Shipp

(Mastered & produced by Assif Tsahar, recorded at Tonic 7/23/2005. Released 2005)

THOMAS FINK reviews:

City Eclogue by Ed Roberson

(Atelos, 2006)

WILLIAM ALLEGREZZA reviews

Drive: The First Quartet by Lorna Dee Cervantes

(Wings Press, San Antonio, Texas, 2006)

CRAG HILL Reviews

Eye Against Eye by Forrest Gander

(New Directions, New York, 2005)

DAVID BAPTISTE-CHIROT Reviews

Lyric Poetry After Auschwitz: Eleven Submissions to the War by Kent Johnson

(effing press, Austin, TX 2005)

WITH

An Afterword Engaging Charles Bernstein’s “Enough”

BILL MARSH reviews by offering a reading through

BABELLEBAB (Non-Poetry on the End of Translation) by Heriberto Yépez

(Duration Press, 2003)

NICHOLAS MANNING Reviews

Unprotected Texts: Selected Poems 1978-2006 by Tom Beckett

(Meritage Press, St. Helena and San Francisco, 2006)

FIONNA DONEY SIMMONDS Reviews

Unprotected Texts: Selected Poems 1978 – 2006 by Tom Beckett

(Meritage Press, San Francisco & St. Helena, 2006)

BEATRIZ TABIOS (& DOPPELGANGER) Review

Unprotected Texts: Poems 1978-2006 by Tom Beckett

(Meritage Press, St. Helena & San Francisco, 2006)

CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ Reviews

I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone by Anna Moschovakis

(Turtle Point Press, N.Y., 2006)

ERICA KAUFMAN Reviews

The Anger Scale by Katie Degentesh

(Combo Books, 2006)

EILEEN TABIOS Reviews

A Place to Stand, memoir by Jimmy Santiago Baca

(Grove Press, New York, 2001)

RON SILLIMAN Reviews

having been blue for charity by kari edwards

(BlazeVOX Books, forthcoming 2007)

MARK YOUNG Reviews

having been blue for charity by kari edwards

(BlazeVOX [books]; Buffalo, N.Y., 2007)

GUILLERMO PARRA Reviews

8 PUBLICATIONS by Micah Ballard

NICHOLAS MANNING Reviews

Night Season by Mark Lamoureux

(Dusie, 2006)

J.O. LECLERC Reviews

Bowery Women: Poems, An Anthology Edited by Marjorie Tesser & Bob Holman

(YBK Publishers, New York, NY C.E. 2006)

IVY ALVAREZ PRESENTS A CHAP ROUND-UP Reviewing Pam Brown, Mackenzie Carignan, Joel Chace, Scott Glassman, jim mccrary, Lynn Strongin and Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

BRENDA IIJIMA Reviews

CONCORDANCE with poems by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge and art by Kiki Smith

(Kelsey Street Press, Berkeley, 2006)

JAMES OWENS Reviews

Born in Utopia: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry Edited by Carmen Firan and Paul Doru Mugur with Edward Foster

(Talisman House, 2006)

TYRONE WILLIAMS Reviews

Negativity by Jocelyn Saidenberg

(Atelos, 2006)

EILEEN TABIOS Engages

the steam sequence by Carly Sachs

(Washington Writers Publishing House, Washington D.C., 2006)

BRENDA IIJIMA Reviews

a half-red sea by Evie Shockley

(Carolina Wren Press, Durham, NC, 2006)

GALATEA RESURRECTS: Selected Reviews & Engagements—now that is a poetry publication to anticipate!!