360 Main Street Reviews Recent Inland Seas Titles

360 Main Street has reviewed two New Issues book recently published in our Inland Seas Poetry Series, a series by poets living in Michigan or from Michigan."

Talking Diamonds by Linda Nemec Foster
Review by Jeanne Lesinski

"The numinous appears unexpectedly for the protagonist of "Vision," sunbathing on a Hawaiian beach. It takes the form of a man bearing a tattoo of the Virgin and Child, like a holy card, on his front and back. Suddenly, the incongruousness of this vision overwhelms the protagonist:

And you tell yourself this isn't a miracle,
only a tattoo; this isn't anything
extraordinary, only your life,
the crowded beach, the husband and son
waving impatiently for you to just
come on, come on, dive in.

And yet. And yet, the emotional truth rings out in this as in other poems in the collection. Where else should the miraculous happen but in everyday lives, in moments when humans are graced with the extraordinary through enhanced perception."

Beauty Breaks In by Mary Ann Samyn
Review by Gina Myers

"Beauty Breaks In is Samyn's fifth book of poetry, and like those that proceed it, the poems in this collection are brief lyrics. It's a poetry marked by concise language where each word seems carefully chosen and surgically precise. Nonetheless, there is a bubbling energy beneath the surface, a sense of disquiet."