1) The Weather Station, “Ignorance” / Tamara Lindeman delivers the first true statement album of 2021, a reckoning with all the damage we’ve wrought upon the environment and a prayer for what is left to salvage. Lindeman’s songs sweep and stir with all the volatility of nature, and offer moments of sheer wonder and beauty—a reminder of all we’re still fighting for.
2) Yasmin Williams, “Urban Driftwood” / Williams is a gentle force for good, a guitarist whose talent expresses itself in thoughtful textures and quietly adventurous melodies. Judge this one by its cover: Williams music matches the shimmering majesty of that image.
3) Diane Glancy, “Island of the Innocent” / Resembling midrash, this poetic exploration of the Book of Job constantly staggers and surprises. Glancy applies her imaginative gifts to help us see into powerful, often terrifying texts and find both more humanity and divinity there.
Just after opening Glancy’s text, EcoTheo Review published this terrific interview around the book. Read it, and her, and immerse yourself in Job’s story.
4) Paul Pastor, “The Roof Slants, So the Water Pours This Way” for Fathom Magazine / Pastor’s latest accomplishes so much in just a few lines. Some of the best poetry lands a loving punch, then backs away to let you sit with the impact. Pastor does that here, a strange kindness to us, in phrases like “a common, secret grief” and “the bald ache / we swallow.”
It will take me some time to get over these lines—and I hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon:
Do you think we all go
from same evenings to
same mornings? Sleepwalkers.
Sighing drunks.
5) Lucy S.R. Austen, “God Will Also Be There” for Fathom Magazine / I owe Lucy Austen a debt for introducing me to the phrase “anticipatory grief,” which gives language to so much of my experience. If that’s all that happened in this piece, it would be worth its weight. But Austen holds forth on real, lasting, hard-won hope and there are so many words here worth revisiting.