Bookslut reviews The Alps

Gina Myers reviews The Alps in the December edition of Bookslut. Here's an excerpt:


Over-sized and heftier than typical single-volume poetry releases, The Alps uses its space well. There is a highly visual aspect to this book -- not just because of the visual poems that are included, but also in its incredible use of white space throughout. Marked by conciseness, the poems almost feel as if the words were carved into the page. Short lines and brief haiku-like poems (“every leaf / from somber wood // opens / the likeness of a grand defect”) take on an added weight from the vast blankness that surrounds them. There are even a number of entirely blank pages throughout -- perhaps giving room for the reader to pause before diving back in.


and:


There is a strong lyric mode at work in The Alps. Shimoda skillfully shifts between seriousness -- pondering death in the harsh environment of the Alps -- and lightness -- incorporating playful rhymes, “Take care to mind / listera / ovate fine,” and interesting enjambments, “What I do is organ striking no stop.”


Read the full review: here



Gina Myers currently lives in Saginaw, MI, where she makes books for Lame House Press & co-edits the tiny with Gabriella Torres. Her blog is A Sad Day for Sad Birds.