Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
Glassworks

Review: Green Regalia

1/1/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Nature as a Deep-Running Source of Comfort 
Review: Green Regalia 

​Rebecca Green

Adam Tavel
Poetry 
Stephen F. Austin State University Press, pp. 88
Cost: $18.00 (Paperback)
Nature is boundless: it covers just about everything we know. And yet, as modern technology progresses, nature has somewhat morphed into a monstrosity in our everyday lives. Many people today fear the unknown depths of the natural world and shy away from exploring it too closely. What might we be missing out on by avoiding nature in all of its pure and chaotic glory?

Adam Tavel’s Green Regalia answers this question, among others. Tavel explores the more comforting aspects of nature through fresh metaphors and experimental phrasing. In all of nature’s chaos and climates, there exists an atmosphere of comfort that Tavel draws attention to. Tavel’s environmentally-themed collection begins with a poem titled “How to Write a Nature Poem.” This poem serves almost as an epigraph, foreshadowing the rest of the collection, which artfully guides the reader through understanding the environment’s present and prevalent hold on our lives. Through use of nature images, Tavel creates deeper themes surrounding family, identity and finding solace in uncontrollable external factors.

Read More
0 Comments

Review: A Wilder Time

9/1/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
Wilderness and a Dissolution of Boundary
Review: A Wilder Time

Joe Gramigna

William Glassley
Nonfiction
Bellevue Literary Press, pp. 224
Cost: $18.00

PictureAlan Watts
“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.” This Alan Watts quote prefaces William Glassley’s nonfiction book A Wilder Time.

Watts was a 20th century Buddhist and spiritual lecturer who talked about the non-existence of self and the necessity of a return to nature in order to dissolve artificial, man-made divisions.

Glassley, a geologist, takes his own Wattsian spiritual journey into the Greenland wilderness. Although Glassley’s scientific background comes across in his writing, it doesn’t outshine his poetic prose that captures the pristine, esoteric setting of an untouched land.


Read More
1 Comment

Review: Driving Together

8/1/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Seemingly Simple Reflections of Life
Review: Driving Together

Julie Darpino

Robert Tyler Sheldon
Poetry
Meadow-Lark Books, pp. 84
Cost: $15.00




In his poetry collection, Driving Together, Tyler Robert Sheldon shares personal observations of seemingly simple moments in his life: observations on a hummingbird, a physical scar, yard work, and graduate school. Spanning all of these subjects, Sheldon’s poems use crisp imagery and storytelling. Through his prevalent themes of childhood experiences, the nature of Kansas, and the relationship to his wife, Sheldon reveals to his readers an unexpected depth to life’s simplicity by use of imagery.

Read More
0 Comments

Review: Staircases Will Outnumber Us

8/1/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture

A Synopsis Plants the Seed for an Otherwise Flowerless Tale
Review: Staircases Will Outnumber Us
​
Rebecca Rodriguez

Jessica Roeder
Flash Fiction Chapbook
Red Bird Chapbooks, pp. 40
Cost: $12.00

Jessica Roeder’s chapbook, Staircases Will Outnumber Us, requires much more from the reader than simply enjoying a beautifully written narrative. Throughout her compilation of twenty-one pieces of flash fiction, Roeder creates a world in which we find a blend of fairy tale and cult-like activity. We watch our narrator live among her nameless “sisters” in a treeless forest, where they bear children and build staircases made from stumps, always awaiting the daily return of their “father.” The reader is forced to discover what the treeless forest represents, and thus, the meaning of everything that follows.

Although we are told in the book’s online synopsis that “One thing’s for certain: we are in America,” there is nothing that makes it certain other than the appearance of sparklers in a chapter titled “Fourth” (representing the 4th of July). One could weakly argue that the “father” (a self-proclaimed “god of war” and “god of reason”) could depict our current president, but the sisters are not relatable enough to portray the rest of society as a whole. Then there is the sun, who, although mentioned several times, still withholds its ambiguous purpose. The synopsis gives an obligation to view the chapbook as political satire, thus biasing the natural apprehension of the reader. To be put simply: It cheated.

Read More
0 Comments

Review: Glass Harvest

8/1/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A Celebration of Chaos 
Review: Glass Harvest 

Rachel Carly 


Amie Whittemore
Poetry
Autumn House Press, pp. 78
Cost: $17.95


​
In her debut poetry collection Glass Harvest (2016) Amie Whittemore unites all aspects of the universe: family, nature, farmland, music, and even the mythical and mysterious. It is full of surprises, moments of elation followed by moments of poignant grief, dark imagery juxtaposed with snapshots of beautiful, rural landscapes. With her poems, Whittemore celebrates the offbeat and unconventional, resulting in a collection of poems that mirror the chaos and unpredictability of family, both in form and content. ​

Read More
0 Comments

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    March 2013
    December 2012


    Categories

    All
    2Leaf Press
    7.13 Books
    Able Muse Press
    Abuse
    Agate Publishing
    Agha Shahid Ali Prize
    Alfred A. Knopf
    Alternative Book Press
    A Midsummer Night's Press
    Andrews McMeel Publishing
    Animals
    Apocalypse Party
    Aqueous Books
    Art
    Ashland Creek Press
    Atticus Books
    Autumn House Press
    Bedazzled Ink Publishing
    Bellevue Literary Press
    Belonging
    Black Lawrence Press
    Book Review
    Bottom Dog Press
    Button Poetry
    Cake Train Press
    Catholic
    Chapbook
    Chronic Illness
    Coffee House Press
    Cold War
    Collection
    Coming Of Age
    Copper Canyon Press
    Creeping Lotus Press
    Divertir Publishing
    Drama
    Dystopian
    Dzanc Books
    Editorial
    Essay
    Essays
    Fairy Tales
    Family
    Fat Dog Books
    Father
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Finishing Line Press
    Flash
    Forest Avenue Press
    Furniture Press Books
    Future Tense Books
    Gender
    Geology
    Gospel
    Graywolf Press
    Hadley Rille Books
    Harbor Mountain Press
    Headmistress Press
    Historical Fiction
    Holocaust
    Home
    Howling Bird Press
    Humor
    Hybrid
    Identity
    Illness
    Immigration
    Jaded Ibis Press
    Journalism
    Kernpunkt Press
    Knut House Press
    Language
    Lanternfish Press
    LEFTOVER Books
    Lewis Hine
    LGBTQ
    Literature
    Mad Creek Books
    Meadow-Lark Books
    Memoir
    Mental Health
    #MeToo
    Microcosm Publishing
    Midwest
    Milkweed Editions
    Mixed Media
    Moonflower Books
    Motherhood
    Multi Genre
    Nature
    Nonfiction
    Novel
    Other Press
    Painting
    Perceval Press
    Poetry
    Poetry Prize
    Poetry Review
    Politics
    Press 53
    Prose Poetry
    Race
    Red Bird Chapbooks
    Red Hen Press
    Relationships
    Religion
    Scribner Books
    Sexuality
    Shechem Press
    Short Story
    Son
    Spirituality
    Split Lip Press
    Spoken Word
    Stories
    Suspense
    Symbolism
    Tarpaulin Sky Press
    Tolsun Books
    Torrey House Press
    Tragedy
    Translation
    Travel
    Two Dollar Radio
    University Of Utah Press
    Unnamed Press
    Unsolicited Press
    Violence
    Wings Press
    Winter Goose Publishing
    Women
    World War II
    Yale Younger Poets Prize

    RSS Feed


Picture

glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu
​All Content on this Site (c) 2023 glassworks