Book Review – Melissa Brooks-Cuffee

dic tion ary: A Book Review

If you’re like me, the word poetry sums up a few other words. Stuffy. Old. Unapproachable. Tired images of William Shakespeare and memories of classroom recitals assault my mind, and I run to the place where poetry is not. When Sharea Harris released her self-published collection of poems “dic tion ary,” I was surprised to…

Citizen: A Book Review

I was introduced to Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric in an Experimental Forms writing class. We were given an excerpt of Citizen and told to mock the prose/poetry style used by Rankine. I found myself intrigued by poetry that was more than iambic pentameter. I didn’t know poetry could exist or tell a story…

Truth & Beauty: A Book Review

I went 34 years without knowing Ann Patchett. In my defense, I suck at reading all the books I’m supposed to read. When people would ask, “Have you read the latest from Ann Patchett” My answer was always a reluctant, “no.” “Oh, you have to read Truth & Beauty,” they’d say. When I found out…

I Don’t Want to be Your Bridesmaid: A Book Review

“We are all connected through our stories.” That was the answer Adina Ferguson gave when I asked why she was compelled to write creative nonfiction. Three years after that conversation, she released a collection of personal essays titled, I Don’t Want to Be Your Bridesmaid and I got to witness the connection first hand. If…