Kent Shaw
@kentdshaw.bsky.social
📤 145
📥 168
📝 222
Second book: Too Numerous (UMass Press, 2019). CW Prof (Wheaton College in MA). US Navy veteran.
"I read Browne’s poems as a caution against love. Because there is a way love can sublime the world. It can unfold the world, like watching a dance troupe shape itself into a flower blooming." from my review of Mahogany L. Browne's Chrome Valley:
www.thekalliope.org/review-chrom...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Chrome Valley (Liveright, 2023)
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-chrome-valley
2 days ago
0
0
0
"One of the challenges of books that avidly embrace a larger project is negotiating the immensity felt by the poet and the actual content the poet is going to give the reader access to." from my review of Sophia Terazawa's Oracular Maladies
www.thekalliope.org/review-oracu...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Oracular Maladies (Noemi, 2026)
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-oracular-maladies?source=copy_link
11 days ago
0
0
0
"Alidio’s Traceable Relation addresses the didactic. In particular, the presumption that didactic writing could truly lead its reader to a set meaning, leading to meanings through a variety of mediums." from my review of Kimberly Alidio's Traceable Relation:
www.thekalliope.org/review-trace...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Traceable Relation (Fonograf, 2025)
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-traceable-relation
19 days ago
0
0
0
"But there is a depth to disaster that dwells in the personal. It’s a rhythm the disaster uses to play through the body. It’s a portioning, as Triplett reveals in Bad Forecast." from my review of Steffan Triplett's Bad Forecast
www.thekalliope.org/review-bad-f...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Bad Forecast (Essay Press, 2024)
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-bad-forecast
about 1 month ago
0
0
0
"Like these are the monologues when you barely have time to think. Because the glamorous life is always pressing in on the self." from my review of Sadie Dupuis's Cry Perfume
www.thekalliope.org/review-cry-p...
loading . . .
micro-REVIEW: Cry Perfume (Black Ocean, 2022)
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-cry-perfume
about 1 month ago
0
0
0
Cindy Juyong Ok's translations in a recent issue of Gulf Coast were so good. I took some extra time to write about Kim Hyesoon's "In Front of a Round Wall"
www.thekalliope.org/everything-c...
loading . . .
Everything comes back in a form of
https://www.thekalliope.org/everything-comes-back-in-a-form-of-you-wouldn-t
about 2 months ago
0
0
0
"On another level, though, the book is about women growing through girlhood to arrive at what seems inevitable, the life of a mother." from my review of Diamond Forde's The Book of Alice
www.thekalliope.org/review-the-b...
loading . . .
REVIEW: The Book of Alice (Scribner, 2026) | Notion
General Thoughts
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-the-book-of-alice
about 2 months ago
0
0
0
"Unfortunately, the lyric does not ensure 1:1 representation, especially when it comes to something like generational trauma." from my review of Asiya Wadud's No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body
www.thekalliope.org/review-no-kn...
loading . . .
REVIEW: No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body (Nightboat, 2021) | Notion
General Thoughts
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-no-knowledge-is-complete
about 2 months ago
0
0
0
"Zhang’s book feels like family, being trapped in family. Or being trapped in that moment when you’re getting shit off your chest, maybe about someone named Michael..." from my review of Jenny Zhang's Dear Jenny, We Are All Find
www.thekalliope.org/review-dear-...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Dear Jenny, We Are All Find (Octopus Books, 2012) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-dear-jenny-we-are-all-find?source=copy_link
2 months ago
0
0
0
"The glacier leaves the impression of stagnancy; it’s literally frozen in time. And this reality makes it an especially sharp analogy for grief." from my review of Danika Stegeman's Ablation:
www.thekalliope.org/review-ablat...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Ablation (11:11 Press, 2023) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-ablation
2 months ago
0
0
0
"She is often weighted with a concern to really understand what concerns her. And out of those layering concerns, a series of impressions emerge. But those impressions aren’t presented in a syllogistic style." from my review of Tracy Fuad's Portal
www.thekalliope.org/review-portal
loading . . .
REVIEW: Portal (University of Chicago Press, 2024) | Notion
General Thoughts
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-portal
2 months ago
0
0
1
"For me, Molnar’s lyric essay, “Minutes: A Remembrance” comes closest to the layering complexity I appreciated in her first book, CHORUS." from my review of Daniela Naomi Molnar's Protocols: An Erasure
www.thekalliope.org/review-proto...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Protocols: An Erasure (Ayin Press, 2025) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-protocols-an-erasure
3 months ago
0
0
0
"The poems are more about nature framing what the poet has to say. Or nature blurring past the natural environment so you can read the human nature feeling you get while you’re in nature!" from my review of Ben Estes's ABC Moonlight
www.thekalliope.org/review-abc-m...
loading . . .
micro-REVIEW: ABC Moonlight (The Song Cave, 2022) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-abc-moonlight
3 months ago
0
0
0
"Bludworth de Barrio’s poetics feels like an atonal orchestral work. The kind whose notes touch the familiar, but also deviate from that familiarity in an unsettling but satisfactory fashion." from my review of Emily Bludworth de Barrios's Rich Wife
www.thekalliope.org/review-rich-...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Rich Wife (University of Wisconsin Press, 2025) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-rich-wife
3 months ago
0
1
0
"That’s what Stephanie Cawley’s book is about. Being in the middle of systems, whether it’s a system called “plot” or “loving relationship” or “hot sex.” Systems that surround them like a cocoon." from my review of Stephanie Cawley's No More Flowers:
www.thekalliope.org/review-no-mo...
loading . . .
REVIEW: No More Flowers (Birds, LLC, 2024) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-no-more-flowers
3 months ago
0
0
0
"Declaration screens from me the truth that throws the poet into declaring these things rather than granting the direct access a declarative statement would carry." from my review of Elisa Gonzalez's Grand Tour
www.thekalliope.org/review-grand...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Grand Tour (FSG, 2023) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-grand-tour?source=copy_link
3 months ago
0
0
0
"And I am trying my hardest to live a life on earth. Just like Miller has asked me to. I’d like to imagine the different spaces where you could draw an emotional cul-de-sac." from my review of Nora Claire Miller's Groceries:
www.thekalliope.org/review-groce...
loading . . .
micro-REVIEW: Groceries (Fonograf, 2025) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-groceries
4 months ago
0
0
0
What G. C. Waldrep does with "grievance" and faith in this poem published a while ago in Bennington Review is remarkable. Who lodges grievance with whom in a relationship with God?
www.thekalliope.org/it-s-never-t...
loading . . .
It's never the full trespass that's forgiven | Notion
Hosted by Notion Sites — The easiest way to get a website up and running.
https://www.thekalliope.org/it-s-never-the-full-trespass-that-s-forgiven?source=copy_link
4 months ago
0
0
0
"I’ve heard him described as a political poet. Capable of seeing what political structures are borne out of people living in a city, living in northern climates. Arranged according to these political structures." from my review of George Oppen's This In Which:
www.thekalliope.org/review-this-...
loading . . .
REVIEW: This In Which (New Directions, 1965) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-this-in-which
4 months ago
0
0
0
"How does the cheerleader fit alongside the considerate math teacher fit alongside the aging woman whose private life feels distant from the feminine life she’d occupied." from my review of Laura Read's But She Is Also Jane
www.thekalliope.org/review-but-s...
loading . . .
REVIEW: But She Is Also Jane (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-but-she-is-also-jane?source
4 months ago
0
0
0
"But where Smith lays out order, with boxes boxing one another in, Webb’s garden, or her house lays out the bewildering heaven she occupies in her grief." from my micro-REVIEW of Lindsey Webb's Plat:
www.thekalliope.org/micro-review...
loading . . .
micro-REVIEW: Plat (Archway Editions, 2024) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/micro-review-plat?source=copy_link
4 months ago
0
0
0
Ryan Taylor has captured the poetry existing in the between space of "masculinity" and "Americanism" in his poem "American Planet." I've written an enthusiastic consideration of that space at the link.
www.thekalliope.org/Not-just-a-p...
loading . . .
Not just a postcard! | Notion
Hosted by Notion Sites — The easiest way to get a website up and running.
https://www.thekalliope.org/Not-just-a-postcard-2e7022a2d7a8805f9f48e8c77d60a6de?source=copy_link
4 months ago
0
1
0
"Some might say the key to enjoying a Natalie Shapero poem is knowing how to laugh." from my review of Natalie Shapero's Stay Dead
www.thekalliope.org/review-stay-...
loading . . .
REVIEW: Stay Dead (Copper Canyon, 2025) | Notion
Tags for this collection
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-stay-dead
4 months ago
0
1
0
"Her genre is not the instruction manual. More like what do you feel like immediately after you’ve read a set of instructions." from my recent review of Valerie Hsiung's The Naif:
www.thekalliope.org/review-the-n...
loading . . .
micro-REVIEW: The Naif (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2024)
A microreview of Valerie Hsiung's collection, The Naif.
https://www.thekalliope.org/review-the-naif
4 months ago
0
0
0
"Koestenbaum is really into reality, and art is reality or runway or state of mind or perspective or a bunch of lewd acts that puts the randy in a name like “Randy.” Include the quotations." from my goodreads review of Wayne Koestenbaum's Stubble Archipelago
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Stubble Archipelago
4/5: OK. I got it now. Or maybe I get it. I don’t know whether to read Wayne Koestenbaum in the present tense or the past. Like walking down the street must be a present tense activity, but you can on...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8086247723
6 months ago
1
2
0
"His poems belong to whatever space is carved when the world, or the place you’re from, or the dominant culture, sets a fire, and everywhere you look, it rings around your existence." from my goodreads review of Isaac Pickell's It's not over once you figure it out
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of It's not over once you figure it out
5/5: I’m always at the mercy of that William Wordsworth poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us.” Like the title alone serves as refrain for all my discontents, or feelings in general, or just navigating...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8067866517
6 months ago
0
1
0
"In essence, the poems fashion the self as a delicate formation. Someone who’s in process, in transition to a new outlook on life, with a new self to do that looking." from my goodreads review of Shelley Wong's As She Appears
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of As She Appears
4/5: There is a focus of self in Shelley Wong’s As She Appears. Like a self can be constructed in sentimental ways. A sensuality to independence. It’s common to note how pleasurable it is to learn who...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8049642362
7 months ago
0
0
0
"Nordgren’s book is hard for me to describe. Maybe it’s writing that got caught in costume. Dressed as a period piece for a fashion magazine." from my goodreads review of Sarah Rose Nordgren's Feathers: A Bird-Hat Wearer's Journal
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Feathers
5/5: Nordgren’s book is hard for me to describe. Maybe it’s writing that got caught in costume. Dressed as a period piece for a fashion magazine. Maybe it’s an occasional notebook for inscribing obser...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8031924014
7 months ago
0
0
0
"It’s like Ashbery wants you to combine a lava lamp with a villanelle. First, a line with an imaginative twist on a present circumstance, and by the next line it’s morphed into a different shape." from my goodreads review of Hotel Lautréamont, by John Ashbery
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Hotel Lautréamont
4/5: I don’t think it had occurred to me why I should read Ashbery through Wallace Stevens before this book. Like poetic history is clear that the two are connected, and I could see the sense to it. B...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8017035449
7 months ago
0
0
0
"The relationship between irony and wonder often feels uneven to me. Irony is so tall, incisive, and imposing on a sentence or a poem" from my goodreads review of Rosmarie Waldrop's The Nick of Time
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of The Nick of Time
5/5: The relationship between irony and wonder often feels uneven to me. Irony is so tall, incisive, and imposing on a sentence or a poem. Yes, I appreciate what irony can bring to a moment. But often...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7974325365
8 months ago
0
0
0
"In Zhou’s book, the triangulation is more sustained. Which allows for especially evocative commentary on who she perceives herself to be, and who she is now after the different pressures that come with adulthood." from my goodreads review of Amelia Zhou's Repose
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Repose
5/5: How is the self formed? And should this self-actualization be staged as a form-ing process or a formationed reality? These, to me, are the underlying questions of Amelia Zhou’s book. Like how poe...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7950875529
8 months ago
0
0
0
"In here, doing-ness revolves mainly around the temporality or shapeliness of an impression. What it takes to experience a moment, while many other moments inflect upon your experience of that moment." from my goodreads review of Bill Carty's We Sailed on the Lake
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of We Sailed on the Lake
5/5: There is a shape to the poetic impressions in Bill Carty’s We Sailed on the Lake. A shape like a lake, I suppose. If you think of “shape” as what a lake looks like when you’re watching the mist h...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7937611471
8 months ago
0
0
0
If you like clowns of all sorts, Sreshtha Sen's poem, "Exceprt from Crown Clown[ed]" (originally in Action, Spectacle) is for you. I was definitely feeling it, so I wrote a close read.
thekalliope.org/excerpt-from...
loading . . .
"Excerpt from Clown Crown[ed]," by Sreshtha Sen - theKalliope
A close reading of Sreshtha Sen's poem, "Excerpt from Crown Clown[ed]." Published originally in Action, Spectacle.
https://thekalliope.org/excerpt-from-clown-crowned-by-srestha-sen/
8 months ago
0
0
0
"One of the challenges to life is knowing how to treat the mundane like it’s meaningless. Which is why I would say Ashbery is resigned to letting LOTS just be his life." from my book review of John Ashbery's Can You Hear, Bird
thekalliope.org/lets-expansi...
loading . . .
Let's expansive the mundane! - theKalliope
A book review of John Ashbery's book Can You Hear, Bird.
https://thekalliope.org/lets-expansive-the-mundane/
8 months ago
0
0
0
"Is the poet's childhood authentic in the way she has learned authenticity from outside sources? From friends or even acquaintances she remembers meeting once, which she describes in “A Lunch Date.”" from my goodreads review of Jennifer Chang's An Authentic Life
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of An Authentic Life
5/5: What I have often admired in Chang’s work is this central lyric concern. Or a fountain of lyric thinking that starts, say, with a juxtaposition between “ocean” and “anonymity.” That generates a l...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7891008528
9 months ago
0
0
0
"Bolsover’s book is like the sharp inquisitive stance Anne Carson maintains about Greek mythology, but lay that inquisition on this bed of striking red petals. from my goodreads review of Tessa Bolsover's Crane
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Crane
5/5: The argument for poetry or lyric sensibility can require many words, sometimes arranged so the wording feels less like words, or maybe it feels more like words. Poetry can be wordy. Lyric prose c...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7879226053
9 months ago
0
0
1
"With pringle, though, it’s the membrane between self and outside the self. The social pressures that come when an individual thinks, I might be belonging to a ‘we’ right now.” from my goodreads review of kathryn l. pringle's Obscenity for the Advancement of Poetry
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of obscenity for the advancement of poetry
4/5: There will always be a struggle and a contradiction when you’re trying to understand a self, especially your own self. Because while you might center on what makes yourself a self viewing itself,...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7868444207
9 months ago
1
0
0
"The book is concerned with darkness, coupled with the perspective clouded by how familiar the poet is with this darkness." from my goodreads review of John Sibley Williams's Skin Memory
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Skin Memory
4/5: There’s a structure to the present. Or there’s a significance felt in the present moment that can feel like poetry, and for John Sibley Williams’s book, feeling poetry implies there is a poetic s...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7860902556
9 months ago
0
0
0
"I am bought in to the book’s overarching concept, its keen interest in cybernetics and AI. Its inquiry into human experience. How much of being human involves occupying the natural world?" from my goodreads review of Olga Ravn's The Employees
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of The Employees
4/5: Books with subjects and definite intentions on saying something about the subject can be difficult for me to read. Like On Walden Pond Henry David Thoreau: Walden Henry Thoreau, difficult to read...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7831312472
9 months ago
0
0
0
"Xanax Cowboy is as much an extended monologue of mistaken identity as they are a WTF is this identity I’m being mistaken for. And, yes, there is outrage compelling the poems forward." from my goodreads review of Hannah Green's Xanax Cowboy
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Xanax Cowboy
5/5: Hannah Green is such a poser. Or Xanax Cowboy is. Or the “Hannah Green” who’s made this character to explain her life as a young adult. Whatever term you think fits when a poet invents a persona,...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7806130358
10 months ago
0
1
0
I think T. S. Eliot's "First Voice" vs "Second Voice" can provide an interesting angle for reading Rodney Gomez's poem, "Genealogy" (found originally at The Boiler). Or that's what I'm talking about here:
thekalliope.org/genealogy-by...
loading . . .
"Genealogy," by Rodney Gomez - theKalliope
A close reading of Rodney Gomez's poem, "Genealogy," originally published in The Boiler
https://thekalliope.org/genealogy-by-rodney-gomez/
10 months ago
0
0
0
"Willis’s book privileges the frayed edges of historical record. It's like visiting an archive, and you’ve been sifting through materials for the whole day, and now it’s everywhere on the table." from my goodreads review of Elizabeth Willis's Liontaming in America
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Liontaming in America
5/5: After reading Willis’s book, I’m personally convinced an official start to human history can be located by those who are persistent enough. Everyone knows what it is. Just look behind you, like a...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7794457817
10 months ago
0
0
0
I feel like I also could have said Abigail Chabitnoy's "Hawking Rabbit Feet in the Age of Disbelief" uses an organic form to uncover its argument. I said this instead.
thekalliope.org/hawking-rabb...
loading . . .
"Hawking Rabbit Feet in the Age of Disbelief," by Abigail Chabitnoy - theKalliope
A close reading of Abigail Chabitnoy's poem, "Hawking Rabbit Feet in the Age of Disbelief." Originally found in Summer 2023 Action, Spectacle
https://thekalliope.org/hawking-rabbit-feet-in-the-age-of-disbelief-by-abigail-chabitnoy/
10 months ago
0
0
0
"Let’s face it, Ashbery is the most there poet there is. The poetics of suddenly realizing, but burying all that sudden realization in rhetoric so that it’s not all the time clear there was a there there." from my goodreads review of John Ashbery's April Galleons
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of April Galleons
5/5: There’s a wisdom to knowing how much of the world around you might be available to you, and how much more of it will merely exist. Trees in blossom. Your uncertainty which of the days it will be ...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7767463814
10 months ago
0
0
0
What I really enjoy about Stefania Gomez's poem "Wreck" is its occupation of a between. It can be silly. It can be somber. And it's the occupation between those I'm trying to write about on my blog.
thekalliope.org/wreck-by-ste...
loading . . .
"Wreck," by Stefania Gomez - theKalliope
There is this line in the middle of Stefania Gomez’s poem, Wreck. She’s referring to these firemen who were at the scene of her car wreck, and she says they couldn’t manage fear. I think this speaks t...
https://thekalliope.org/wreck-by-stefania-gomez/
10 months ago
0
0
0
I'd like to think this is a fair, critical reading of Emily Lee Luan's book, Return. And what I mean by critical is I register my delight that the book accomplishes its ambition.
thekalliope.org/sorrow-frame...
loading . . .
Sorrow, Framed: A book review for Emily Lee Luan's Return - theKalliope
I have an initial review of Emily Lee Luan’s Return at goodreads. But I’ve thought to further elaborate on it after my close reading of the book’s final poem, “From weeping into weeping.” Emily Lee Lu...
https://thekalliope.org/sorrow-framed-a-book-review-for-emily-lee-luans-return/
10 months ago
0
0
0
"A city can serve an individual’s ennui, and within that flat affect can exist the urge to say something new, to notice someone who would have gone overlooked, or to stir a fantasy." from my goodreads review of Charles Baudelaire's Paris Spleen
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of Paris Spleen
5/5: What is a city? Which seems like a sensible question. But it’s not. Because there are ways a city is what people want to find in a city. In many of Baudelaire’s prose poems, he alludes to the spe...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7746514321
10 months ago
0
0
0
reposted by
Kent Shaw
Kim Andrews
10 months ago
Hi yes the coda of my book touches upon this as well as like three articles I have recently written about the inefficiency of humanistic study!! I will be annoying about this forever probably!
add a skeleton here at some point
1
18
3
reposted by
Kent Shaw
Jesse Lee Kercheval
11 months ago
Submissions OPEN for the Wisconsin Poetry Series
@uwiscpress.bsky.social
! Daniel Borzutzky is this year's judge for the Wisconsin Translation Prize! Airea D. Matthews for the Brittingham and Pollak Prize. Finalists are also chosen for publication!
wicw.submittable.com/submit
0
22
8
"Because so much of this book smells. Like if you’re going to read it, prepare to be nauseous. Prepare to laugh at how the world is." from my goodreads review of Kim Hyesoon's All the Garbage of the World, Unite!
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
loading . . .
Kent's review of All the Garbage of the World, Unite!
5/5: Something happened here. Something got stuck in a hole. Something sick. Like how garbage is sick. Like some people might talk about having baggage from previous relationships, and it feels like a...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7726199154
11 months ago
0
0
0
Load more
feeds!
log in