reviewed by Camille Renshaw
The 1990 Pulitzer Prize winner The World Doesn’t End is the only prose poetry collection to date to win that prestigious award. At the time the outcry and protests of prosaic poets and stuffy reviewers could be heard everywhere. The controversy itself was the only …
reviewed by Camille Renshaw
Voice is the key to Powell’s first novel, Edisto. “You say it ‘Simmons.’ I’m a rare one-m Simons,” says Powell’s 12-year-old narrator and child genius, Simons Manigault. Simons is a real kid, a young pillar of sanity in the midst adult absurdity, whose voice is …
reviewed by Camille Renshaw
Aliens of Affection is the perfect title for Padgett Powell’s most recent collection of short stories because it is at once alienating and endearing. Powell’s stories precisely reflect his characters’ mental stations and instability, underlining the extremes people go to for sanity. Despite the delirium …
by Stephen Pain
“You can rinse now.” He lost count of how many times he had said this to patients, but no matter the number, he got a vicarious pleasure from the smile of relief on their faces. If only there was such a phrase for his life, …