In 2020’s lockdown period, Sundress Reads was born to provide opportunity to foster support for authors with newly published work when in-person celebrations weren’t possible. Our excitement in celebrating small press titles continues, and we feature reviews every Friday. We are now accepting submissions for consideration for inclusion in our review series, Sundress Reads. We’re … Continue reading Sundress Reads
Rae Gouirand’s chapbook, Little Hour (Swan Scythe Press, 2022), uses poetry as a medium to explore themes of place, space, duality of self, as well as the relationship between nature versus human influence and design. The collection of 20 poems opens with “Some Place” which encapsulates the speaker’s desire to understand their purpose and place … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of Little Hour
Melissa Valentine’s The Names of All The Flowers is dedicated to her late older brother, Junior. The memoir serves a devastating reminder that gun violence statistics refer to people (often young men of color) who are loved by many and sometimes suffocated by deep-rooted, systemic challenges in the United States. In 1990’s Oakland, young … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of The Names of All The Flowers
Sundress Publications is currently looking to hire for the position of Sundress Reads Editor. This remote, unpaid position will work with a team of interns and outside reviewers to give feedback on reviews prior to drafting them on WordPress as well as join Sundress Publications in continuing its ongoing commitment to service and the importance … Continue reading Sundress Reads Editor Job Call
JC Holburn’s debut chapbook DRIBS (pitymilk press, 2021) exists in the wake of the grief that comes with divorce. Holburn reveals the impulsive need to self-destruct and, at the same time, remake yourself entirely. She writes in title-less poems of the moments long past lost when you realize you were indeed part of the problem … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of DRIBS
Caroline Cottom’s Asylum (Main Street Rag, 2022) is a soul stirring collection of poems recounting patriarchal violence and its direct connection to the frequency of institutionalization of women in the early 1900’s. This collection tackles the age-old misogynistic term “hysteria” in such an unapologetic way it keeps us flipping page after page to the end, … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of Asylum
Jendi Reiter’s third poetry collection, Made Man (Little Red Tree Publishing, 2022), skillfully explores the transmasculine identity through the lens of capitalist America and small town mentalities. Inherently a political text, Reiter dissects their own gender journey along with the state of our consumerist world today, such as asking the titular transfag in “Transfag Semiotics,” … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of Made Man
What does the end of the world really mean? In Ashley Cline’s chapbook electric infinities (Variant Literature, 2023), she works through this through a stunning use of naturalistic imagery, exploratory use of lineation within lines themselves, and toying with form to understand humans and their relationship with nature. The collection itself begins with an invitation … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of electric infinities
In edie roberts’ Ain’t Life Grand (pitymilk press, 2020), the seething fury of radical youth boils just under a cooled, jaded, midlife critique of contemporary America. roberts pinpoints the surprisingly complex feelings of seemingly normal, bureaucratic experiences, such as going to the doctor and riding on the bus, and delivers them as hot, little coals … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of Ain’t Life Grand
“In the distance, a gunshot” is the ending line of the first poem in Samantha Deflitch’s collection, Confluence. When a gunshot rings out, one subconsciously suspects different scenarios. Someone had a successful hunt. Someone is playing target practice. Maybe a race is starting. A disagreement between two gangs turned south. A home-invader was caught and … Continue reading Sundress Reads: Review of Confluence
