review – Maudlin House

Replacing Furballs with Truffles: a review of Juliette Sebock’s How My Cat Saved My Life

Blake WallinFebruary 14, 2020

I never thought I would finish – much less enjoy – a poetry collection solely devoted to our feline friends, but here we are. Clichés are about currency. If ...

Reviews0 Comments

Poetry by Its Own Name: a review of Homie by Danez Smith

Blake WallinJanuary 26, 2020

If the bait-and-switch of the title bothers you, this is not the book for you. The results of approaching this book far outweigh Danez Smith’s previous two coll...

Reviews0 Comments

The Death of Nihilism: A review of Noah Cicero’s GIVE IT TO THE GRAND CANYON

Blake WallinJanuary 10, 2020

Ah, the Grand Canyon. Purveyor of crushed dreams and desperation, overseer of Vegas excess and western stoicism, keeper of our nation’s hopes and secrets. &n...

Reviews0 Comments

“We Swim Out Forever”: Jack C Bucks’ Gathering View

Mallory SmartAugust 1, 2018

This first collection by Jack C Buck is uncompromising and hopeful. Split into three sections, the poems come together to form a narrative that ta...

Reviews0 Comments

A Review of Quick Fix by Ctch Bsnss

Shannon CawleyJuly 27, 2018

Whenever my writing career first began in 2015, one of the first voices I became obsessed with was that of Catch Business’s. Not only did her poems become a phy...

Reviews0 Comments

Mostly Flesh: Thoughts on Claudia Cortese’s “Wasp Queen”

Laura KnicklebineJuly 10, 2017

Look here: this is Lucy’s life. It’s covered in rust, because Lucy prefers it that way. It’s a flesh ball of dirt, blood and memory that Lucy holds in her own h...

Reviews0 Comments

Squids in Love, and other Absurdisms: Thoughts on Michael Sikkema’s Chapbook

Laura KnicklebineMay 29, 2017

It’s hard to pin this little book up against proper scenery. Sikkema throws it around too quickly, like a noxious ball of fire. Poems tumble in the depths of ou...

Reviews0 Comments

An Honest Self: Beyza Ozer’s Fail Better

Max HeidelbergerApril 9, 2017

One of the most disorienting pieces of prose I’ve read is Samuel Beckett’s Westward Ho. In intentionally clipped and fragmented style, Beckett dissects personho...

Reviews0 Comments

In a Studio, In Chicago, I Write a Review: Thoughts on Shy Watson’s New Chapbook

Laura KnicklebineFebruary 26, 2017

Shy Watson’s candid chapbook leaves something to be desired-something specific. It narrates a suffocating crush. A hopeless attraction, detrimental to a young p...

Reviews0 Comments

Of Fathers and Sons: Devin Kelly’s Blood on Blood

Max HeidelbergerJanuary 22, 2017

There’s much that’s been said and written about the rust belt and blue-collar America in the aftermath of the 2016 election. As a cultural group which—very broa...

Reviews0 Comments

Review of Dragons by Melissa Dickey

Laura KnicklebineDecember 18, 2016

During birth, mother and daughter become strangers. Motherhood is a foreign concept, not as instinctive as expected and a daughter remains a strange, inanimat...

Reviews0 Comments

Poetry of the Posthuman: A Review of The Plural Space

Max HeidelbergerOctober 30, 2016

The title of Matthew Mahaney’s The Plural Space invites a question: what is the plural space? The plural space could best be described as a liminal place; the...

Reviews0 Comments

Review of “Prophet Fever” by Jennifer Hanks

Rachel Charlene LewisJuly 31, 2016

Jennifer Hanks' "Prophet Fever" is a bizarre and molded sparkle in a world filled to the brim with chapbooks that only come close to the success they have undou...

Reviews0 Comments

Review of “Evergreen” by Sarah Frances Moran

Rachel Charlene LewisJuly 24, 2016

It remains ridiculously important to discuss things like sexual violence in the world at large, but, specifically, in the poetry world, and in her poetry collec...

Reviews0 Comments

Review of “I Have Devoted My Life to the Clitoris” by Elizabeth Hall

Rachel Charlene LewisJuly 17, 2016

I am very much the sort of aggressively-obsessed-with-vaginas type who is drawn immediately to books like Elizabeth Hall’s "I Have Devoted My Life to the Clitor...

Reviews2 Comments

Review of “Father, Husband” by Scherezade Siobhan

Rachel Charlene LewisJuly 10, 2016

This is a thing so bodily that it requires it be felt. Indo-Roma writer Scherezade Siobhan’s full length collection, "Father, Husband," explores through the sli...

Reviews0 Comments

Review of “Ghosts Still Walking” by Do Nguyen Mai

Rachel Charlene LewisJuly 3, 2016

Do Nguyen Mai’s debut collection stuns with stabbing diction and fluid conversation. There is a softness to her sounds, but a violence to her verbs. A sense of ...

Reviews0 Comments

Review of “VHS and Why it’s Hard to Live” by Tatiana Ryckman

Rachel Charlene LewisJune 26, 2016

In Tatiana Ryckman’s debut collection of flash nonfiction, technology meets the body meets the haze of memory. There is a rawness to it, a knowledge that time f...

Reviews0 Comments

Review of “Actual Cloud” by Dalton Day

Rachel Charlene LewisJune 19, 2016

Big things are small soft things, here. In his debut full length collection from Salò Press, "Actual Cloud," Dalton Day talks fear of death, dependence, and exi...

Reviews0 Comments

Want to work at Maudlin House?

Mallory SmartApril 29, 2016

Yes, you read that correctly! Maudlin House is looking to inject some fresh blood into the press. Our interviews editor, Olivia Olson, is heading off to grad sc...

Blog0 Comments