1) Typhoon, “Sympathetic Magic” / The fifth offering from this Oregon band is a wonderful blur of textures and tension. Typhoon has always shown itself capable of crafting strong, evocative melodies. Here, the band only expands upon its past work with songs that dig deep and really linger with listeners.
2) Lo Village, “Lost in America” / Descended from the likes of Arrested Development, De La Soul and The Fugees, this Maryland trio accomplishes volumes in about 15 minutes on its new EP. Sharp lyrical insights meet poignant vocals—all laid over slow-burning soundscapes. This is what the future of hip-hop, soul and pop sounds like.
3) Ted Kooser, “Kindest Regards” / Late to the party per usual, I’m only now digging into the work of the Pulitzer Prize winner. Kooser is 81, but this collection gave me hope that there’s time yet for us to become best friends and sit around talking about the weather (Nebraska isn’t all that far away!). The poet is a master of light and damp, granting all his poems a warm inner light no matter what rages outside.
4) Clifford Brooks, “The Draw of Broken Eyes and Whirling Metaphysics” / I owe Cliff Brooks a lot. He published my second-ever poem, bringing a legitimacy to that side of my work. No matter my affinity, I’d find much to commend about this collection from the Georgia-born poet. There is a wonderful collision of forces here: jazz, sex, Buddhism, fruit (forbidden and otherwise), the violence of the Old South, the unsteady hope of the New South and so much more. Brooks handles it all nimbly in poems that are, yes, quite metaphysical but feel as tangible and tactile as anything you’ll read.
5) Jane Zwart, “St. Martha” in EcoTheo Review / Zwart’s poems never fail to astonish—and in a new way ever time. A few days after telling my son the Bible story of Mary and Martha, of busyness and planting yourself at Jesus’ feet, I read this wonderful lyric ode to Martha. Zwart’s final line is a knockout punch (“Only Christ could fluster her.”) but its power comes from all the words before it, a wonderful dance of language, identity, earthiness and grasping for eternity.