reviews all over the web: part 1 of ... 3, maybe??

While I am busy trying to falteringly document by way of brief reviews my National Poetry Month (2012) reading, I would be remiss if I did not (finally) get back to publishing a compendium of reviews of poetry collections posted elsewhere on the web.

I have been sitting on these for... way too long. And rather than dumping them all here in one go I'll be breaking them up into 2 or 3 different posts over the coming month. To wit, here is the first batch:

• Aridity of Feelings by Uche Peter Umez | review by Nnamdi Anumihe
• Blue Rivers: Poems by Douglas Reid Skinner | review by John Eppel
• Echoes of Blunt Voices by Patrick Hwande | review by Phillip Chidavaenzi
• The Everyday Wife by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers | review by Moira de Swardt
• Imagine Africa by Breyten Breytenbach (ed) | review by Grace Musila
• Malikhanye by Mxolisi Nyezwa | review by Kyle Allen
• Nest of Stones: Kenyan Narratives in Verse by Wanjohi wa Makokha | review by Mikhail Gromov
• Other Signs by Ingrid de Kok | review by Kylie Thomas
• Over the Years by Louis Bankole Jones | review by Roland Bankole Marke
• Smiles in Pathos and Other Poems by Khainga O'Okwemba | review by Pauline Odhiambo
• Stranger at Home: The Praise Poet in Apartheid South Africa by Ashlee Neser | review by Chris Dunton
• The Tempest Prognosticator by Isobel Dixon | review by Kylie Thomas
• The Tempest Prognosticator by Isobel Dixon | review by Wendy Woodward
• Voices in Exile by Tendai Mwanaka | review by Philo Ikonya

And on top of all that? South Africa's Mail & Guardian published a brief omnibus review by Kylie Thomas of five Modjaji Books collections -- Difficult Gifts by Dawn Garisch; Conduit by Sarah Frost; Hemispheres by Karen Lazar; The Suitable Girl by Michelle McGrane; The Everyday Wife by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers (all or most of which I'll be tackling later in the month).

There is a refreshing depth to and sustained engagement with the poetry in the bulk of the reviews above. Hardly a critical word is uttered, however, making me think I am either a curmudgeonly ass or simply not reading the right books. I think it's probably the former. Oh well...

Enjoy!!