Kent Shaw

Excited to have work in Issue 14 of @GhostProposal. Alongside poets I love reading. How lucky am I! For your reading pleasure: ghostproposal.com/issue-14

"...the physically lived experience of this may or may not need to show up in the work. And this, truly, is what is at stake." from my goodreads review of Brian Teare's Poem Bitten by a Man goodreads.com/review/show/69…

"And the difference between Tender Data and The Gone Thing is the not-in-the-middle-of-it-ness. Like The Gone Thing is past that life, but is still intimately aware of that lifestyle." from my goodreads review of Monica McClure's The Gone Thing goodreads.com/review/show/69…

That speech Michelle Obama just gave was one of the best of this entire cycle. She is unbelievable. Here’s how she brought it home.

"It’s how Peterson's accounting for concerns. The concern of motherhood. The concern of wildfires. The metaphors that could provide some insight, but not an entirety of insight." from my goodreads review of Katie Peterson's Fog and Smoke goodreads.com/review/show/69…

"Paradox is something generative for the writer. A series of poems casting the poet amidst her own paradox, crafting a flexible contrariety among the many poles that feel true to it." from my goodreads review of Laynie Browne's Practice Has No Sequel goodreads.com/review/show/69…

"In “the between” of dealing with mixed-race identities, which are you supposed to identify with? What to do when your identification with one leaves the other identities feeling incomplete?" from my goodreads review of Cynthia Arrieu-King's The Betweens goodreads.com/review/show/69…

I am very interested in a poetics of particularity. And, writing about Eric Tyler Benick's poem, "Failure Matrix" (from @mercuryfirs) I think I found something to say. thekalliope.org/failure-matrix…

"I read Machado like her poems are assembling a tapestry. Or they’re enacting a tapestry. Or they perform in language how a tapestry seems to exist in a static state on a wall, but poems aren’t static." from my goodreads review of Aditi Machado's Emporium goodreads.com/review/show/69…

"Like the poet is a figure inside the subject witnessing to the subject’s existence, and from that insider’s perspective she discovers new explanations for the subject, new configurations of reasoning." from my goodreads review of Sasha Steensen's Well goodreads.com/review/show/69…

"Because the autobiographies she’s writing don’t actually concede to a set of uniform boxes. They’re designed to make you feel boxed-into a set context while you’re reading." from my goodreads review of Margaret Ross's Saturday goodreads.com/review/show/68…

"I kept wondering how I should be reading these love poems. As devotionals to a self, especially a self that could look forward to a transition? Or poems to a literal lover?" from my goodreads review of S. Yarberry's A Boy in the City goodreads.com/review/show/68…

"Granted, every poem could be described as inadequate. Because it has to end. Whatever the relationship established between reader and poet, it exists to be concluded." From @kentdshaw's review of Endi Bogue Hartigan's 'oh orchid o'clock' thediagram.com/24_2/rev_harti…

"Imagine grief as a oneness, which is a thickened existing on its own. Grief that presses into a body, a coercive force, and you get the setting for Niina Pollari’s book." from my goodreads review of Niina Pollari's Path of Totality goodreads.com/review/show/68…

"But there are too many moments where Hejinian relies on a series of verbs, or adverbs, sometimes nouns. And that paratactic impulse doesn’t feel as lively or as compelling." from my goodreads review of Lyn Hejinian's Tribunal goodreads.com/review/show/68…

Michelle and I think that Julie Mehretu’s art installation, titled “Uprising of the Sun,” will be one of the most important aspects of the Obama Presidential Center and an iconic contribution to the South Side and the city of Chicago. We can’t wait for you to see it.

"Perhaps 'commenting' is the form that Candrilli’s book adopts. Commentary on the reality of situations. And the inescapable situation of situations." from my goodreads review of Kayleb Rae Candrilli's What Runs Over goodreads.com/review/show/68…

"Like the contours of a life running along the template many people will call “life.” But, then, is there a question: what do you do when the template for life was all along formed by men?" from my goodreads review of Danielle Dutton's Attempts at a Life goodreads.com/review/show/68…

"...for my reading, the book set a bunch of different poetic figures close to one another, but then didn’t do enough to explain what makes their proximity compelling." from my goodreads review of Jessica Q. Stark's Savage Pageant goodreads.com/review/show/68…

A close reading of @amie_zimmerman's poem "Entry," from @mercuryfirs. With an effort to think through the poem by putting it beside poetry by Laynie Browne and Medbh McGuckian. thekalliope.org/entry-by-amie-…

Always good news when Bennington Review has a new issue out!!