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Coteau Books - November 11, 2008 - 0 Comments

Wolf Tree

Wolf Tree by Alison Calder

Reviewed by Joanna M. Weston

Calder brings together the human and natural world with ease. There is an almost seamless integration, a blurring of lines between the environment and humanity: each affects the other in some way; each inhabits the other.

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Coteau Books - May 24, 2007 - 0 Comments

Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method

Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough… by Daniel Scott Tysdal

Reviewed by Maria Scala

In reviewing Daniel Scott Tysdal’s Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method, many words come to mind, foremost of these are playful and innovative. Even before I read a single poem, the book’s slick red cover, the title emblazoned across the front in uppercase, its unusual trim size (8 1/2 x 11 ), and its page after page of carefully formatted text and images, promised not your average book of poetry.

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Coteau Books - January 22, 2007 - 0 Comments

Stones Call Out

Stones Call Out by Pamela Porter

Reviewed by Jenna Butler

Pamela Porter’s Stones Call Out details the struggles, grief and grace associated with bearing witness. Far from being inscribed in the personal, Porter’s poems reach out into the larger world – Latin America, mining towns in the Midwest – blurring the lines between the act of witnessing as personal and as universal.

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Coteau Books - November 30, 2006 - 0 Comments

Running in Darkness

Running in Darkness by Robert Currie

Reviewed by Kris Brandhagen

Although it is a collection of poems that awakens in its subject matter, it is through Currie’s humble approach to the details that this book of poetry rapidly evolves.  Robert Currie’s Running in Darkness is a life story comprised of three sections that span the distance between conception and age sixty.  Evocative and at times sentimental, Currie’s new book is complex yet optimistic.

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Coteau Books - August 29, 2006 - 0 Comments

Just Living

Just Living by William Robertson

Reviewed by Sharon Berg

From first glance, William Robertson is not afraid of taking risks, whether they are emotional or lyrical. Each poem in Just Living records a moment in the journey toward a man’s transformation. As snapshots instead of portraits, the overall effect is to involve the reader in assembling the series which, together, paint a picture. In its entirety the book exposes the raw angst of a man who strays from his marriage. Yet in gathering the story, poem by poem, one discovers wonderful twists of language that turn clichéd phrases into fresh insights about how this particular fellow processed both his fall from grace and his rise to greater personal insight. In fact, Robertson turns the tale of common betrayal into an exposé of the intrigue and mystique employed by an ordinary man as he justifies his turn away from his prior commitments. However, this is also how the book fails. It is a question of who the audience is posited to be. Whatever his intentions, what results - though interesting in its own right - is a portrait of a man who tries to explain himself to himself.

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