“Interview with John Yamrus” by Peter Mladinic

In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John Yamrus has published 39 books. He has also had more than 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A number of his books and poems are taught in college and university courses. He is widely considered to be a…

“The Made Thing, a Review of Nolcha Fox’s ‘Finger Painting with Words’” by Peter Mladinic

The care taken in the making of these poems is obvious.  Lyrical, vivid, imaginative, ultimately they are inclusive, so personal as to be impersonal, universal, speaking to and of all of us. What’s important to the poet is important to her reader.  She knows how to listen. Fox does what all good poets do, and the…

“Dreams of Contentment: A Review of Jeff Weddle’s ‘How It Went to Pieces’” by Peter Mladinic

In “Lost in America,” life is a journey “with no clear destination.”  The best part of the journey is love, an antidote to “beer drunk days, broken nights,” and “friends who seemed like forever,” an antidote to “no good answers” and “lies held dear.”  How It Went To Pieces is a response to the lack of…

“Topsy” by Peter Mladinic

My dark side isn’t as dark as ThomasEdison’s. Edison gave us light,and for that like any sane personI’m down on my knees thanking him.But what about Topsy the elephant?A barker or some such shoved a litsmoke, the orange tip up Topsy’s trunkand Topsy hurt the barker,crushed his foot or just sprained his foot.For that Topsy,…

“Animals/ Angels” by Pete Mladinic

Memories are wings night’s stillnessheavenly thunder rain in the meadowAngelsfly flies to treetops, higher into the cathedral of the red breasted robin and circles within walls so high their topscan’t be seenAngelsfly wears the veil, is the veil,that flicker of flightin the darkness around usBeginnings and ends of sufferingsmystic the veil the chamber the spiral over the river within the riverflying into herselfin…

“The World Stands on Its Head: A Review of John Grey’s Between Two Fires” by Peter Mladinic

What it means to live between two fires is conveyed in a person’s vitality. The vital signs of youth are clear in “A Boy At The Wake,” in “the moaning, the tears, the low conversations that broke out here and there,” in things that distinguish the boy from “the man in the box up front”…

“Reverence and Other Towns: A Review of Jeff Weddle’s Driving the Lost Highway” by Peter Mladinic

Driving the lost highway, the poet stops here and there, finds humanity, and shapes it into words.  A humanity borne of lived lives.  In one poem he says, “Truth lies in things we touch”.  Along the highway, the mundane coexists with the exotic and the familiar with the strange. Around a curve, the unexpected.  The…

“The Myth of Safety: A Review of Jeff Weddle’s book, Advice for Cannibals” by Peter Mladinic

The poems in Advice for Cannibals affirm beauty and love made possible by one person’s being with another. However, the poems warn of danger (cannibals). Love may not always protect, creating a myth of safety. The myth of safety sits among the ashes of flames in “Conflagration”, a poem about a house on fire.  “All things…