“There is power in the fact that they enjoyed pleasure for pleasure’s sake and never apologized.”
I’m already a fan of Andrea Blythe’s work, and I’ve been meaning to preorder this (which I will now be doing promptly, as the layout and section art is very attractive and I prefer my poetry chapbooks in print.) However, seeing it available as an ARC, I couldn’t wait to get a sneak peek.
This is an easy read, a beautiful coffee table book, an a solid reference book on a topic that I’ve never seen a book dedicated to covering. I could easily see this at home in a florist shop, and equally at home on the bookshelf of a Green Witch, a poet who loves to write about flowers, or someone who just really likes flowers.
This is a great addition to any tarot student’s collection. It’s good for tarot readers of any experience level, but will be of particular use to new tarot readers and tarot readers looking to make the transition to reading professionally.
I really love reading cookbooks, but to be honest, I’m a harder sell for mixology books because I’m pretty clueless about alcohol. Basically, I know it gets you drunk and sometimes it tastes better than other times! I usually only go for themed mixology books, like Tequila Mockingbird and Gone With the Gin. So taking a mixology book and fusing it with elements of witchcraft and paired crystal magic — that part was actually an easy sell for me.
I’m a huge fan of Nicole Oquendo, & I have loved everything published by Bone & Ink Press. This collection is, like many of Oquendo’s chapbooks, a themed collection of hybrid work (I’ve taken to calling their work “proems” because they live in the liminal space between poetry, prose, & magic spell/invocation).
This book is really unique — it’s one big fabulist poem, separated into movements, kind of reminiscent of Erin Belieu’s Black Box. The overall conceit is a circus show, the idea of “running away to join the circus” & each movement examines recurring themes, like desire, identity, & loss — specifically, the loss of an insular community — your own band of circus performers.
Is Many Restless Concerns a conceptual literary work? Collection of threaded persona poems? Historical-fiction-in-verse? Narrative poem? All these definitions are accurate, & none capture completely what Many Restless Concerns “is.”
You know that one book that knocks the air out of your lungs? The one that teaches you all sorts of things on a craft level, & makes you grind your jaw in utter admiration & (respectful) envy because you wish you’d written it? The one that makes you determined that the next thing you write is going to be *on their level*? You know that book?
Yeah. This is THAT book.
No one — and I mean NO ONE — writes a messy love story and human reconciliation quite like Tiffanie De Bartolo. This author has had my heart since the 90’s, when Dream for an Insomniac came out. For every decade of my life, Tiffanie DeBartolo has given me a book to help me get through the euphoric highs and soul-crushing lows of love, friendship, figuring out what you want, and understanding how to forgive those who hurt you, and how to forgive yourself for those you’ve hurt. In her body of work, love is an unavoidable, glorious mess that well-meaning people make, and it’s also the exact thing that becomes their saving grace.
Wow. I read a lot of tarot books (and consequently, a lot of tarot books geared toward novices) and all I can say is that it’s exhilarating to see tarot readers of my generation (Gen Xish) coming into the field of tarot writers. Like Michelle Tea’s Modern Tarot, this is, I believe, an instant classic in terms of learning and teaching tarot.