beth_onusko-small.jpg The poems in Darcie Dennigan’s debut collection, Corinna A-Maying the Apocalypse, radiate. Dennigan allows exuberance and earnestness, two traits often dismissed by twenty-first century poets, into her work. I found the poems most compelling, though, when that levity manages to cast shadows, such as in Bullet: “It was like a heavy seed, so I thought, Plant it./ No soil so I swallowed it.// How to make it not a thrown stone, not the grape of wrath./ Make it not the animal’s eye gleaming at the attack.// Think tuft of cotton not glint of cobalt./ A bluebell in my woods near moss.”

Bio: Elizabeth Onusko is managing editor of Guernica. Read her last recommendation “here”:http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/1135/staff_pick_elizabeth_onusko/.