Ruben Quesada has reviewed Paraíso: Poems by Jacob Shores-Argüello for the Oxford American Magazine. As the series editor’s preface notes, “these lines and everywhere in his poetry, he conveys a reverence for the wounded and for the pilgrimages we undertake in...
“Shores-Argüello (In the Absence of Clocks) returns to his mother’s Costa Rican hometown on the occasion of her death in his latest, winner of the inaugural CantoMundo Poetry Prize. The title also references the poet’s home—or one of them. In poems displaying...
“As Kenneth Barnes shows in his engagingly written and thought-provoking Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas, fear of foreigners and foreign influence could grip even a state with very few immigrants. Barnes’ book is one of the most sophisticated and thoroughly researched...
“Throughout this anthology, more than 60 other well-known Brooks poems can be read the same way, with lines from ‘The Mother’ and ‘The Bean Eaters’ tripping down the right-hand side of the page. The anthology ends with ‘Non-Brooks Golden Shovels’ and ‘Variations and...
“While the subtitle suggests an emphasis on a neighborhood, this book is really a family history about people for whom place is important. Setting his book in both Kentucky and Missouri, historian Rader (emer., Univ. of Nebraska) recounts details such as the...
“Wiggins (George Mason Univ.) and Swanson (Univ. of New Mexico) have edited a 12-essay volume, written by recognized experts, about the segregated era in African American sports. The sections “Teams” and “Events” are probably too detailed, but the section on...
