Deb Scott writes about her own reading of the book, and talks to Ren Powell:"DS: I adore “Red-Ear Slider” for so much: its complexity, how fully developed it is, how brave the voice in going deep & far; the smartness for developing it as poem in a series, the surprising & beautiful images. It seems as though that poem shaped the rest of the collection, but perhaps it’s a natural assumption a reader would have. Please tell me more about it, if you would." RP: Thank you so much for those words! That compliment means a lot to me. I guess “Red-Eared Slider” does shape the rest of the collection, because it is the story of what shaped me..." (4/24/2011)
Kristin Berkey-Abbott: Holy Week Readings of "Mercy Island":"And as I've spent my evenings this week shuttling back and forth between work and home and church, I've come back to these poems again and again, startled by their images, intrigued by the connections that Ren Powell makes, and comforted by the idea that even though life leads us to bloody/gory places, we can survive and perhaps even find redemption in the suffering. " (4/23/2011)
Dave Bonta writes "Lines in Response to Ren Powell's Mercy Island":"(p. 1) The head of state, polished to a high sheen, is not the kind of god to submit to questioning... (2) I remember $24.95 in saved allowance, dimes & quarters stacked on the counter of the camera store in exchange for that black box, my Instamatic! And taking a photo of my shadow beside the pigs... (3) Grandma had a slingshot she used on the guinea fowl, those perpetually agitated gray commas...."(4/20/2011)
An interview with Fiona Robyn at "Writing Our Way Home: Ren Powell:"I believe that poetry is a dialogue with the world, made public. I need time to listen and to watch the world’s body language from a point of silence. I need time to consider things that I thought were unequivocal, but turned out not to be. Some poems interpret the world for us. I like, and strive to write, poems that present the world in its complexity for interpretations. If I attempt to force myself to write when the material isn’t flowing, my self becomes overbearing. And my self just isn’t all that interesting....But when it flows… there is nothing more satisfying." (4/12/2011)
Nic Sebastian writes a review on her blog and at Goodreads:"The narrator in this fine collection is explorer and cartographer of a multitude of emotional, spiritual and international landscapes. Whether ruthlessly illuminating even the darkest corners in the rooms of herself, or putting on the lives of other women like so many beautiful garments, with tenderness and respect, Ren Powell's narrator holds our attention and enriches our thinking."(4/8/2011)
Carolee Sherwood: "Reading Mercy Island": Carolee offers a very personal reading; here's an excerpt: "These poems all have secrets.
And sexy. These poems are sexy. And if I say dangerous, too, you’ll
get the wrong idea. It’s not the danger and sex we’re used to from
action heroes or rock stars. It’s something like the edge of the world." (3/30/2011)
A detailed review is published at The Velveteen Rabbi:"I
seem to be citing the poems which most made me clutch at my heart. But
there is also tremendous beauty here, and somehow the beauty is even
more striking for its juxtaposition with the suffering.... This is a
gorgeous collection of poems." (3/24/2011)
