A geography of sex and violence permeates throughout Ephraim Sommers’s
Someone You Love is Still Alive. This energetic text presents readers with
contemporary insight into poetic archives that contort racial violence and love, shifting kisses amid murder reports that bend quietly under police badges. Sommers’s pragmatic aesthetic aligns with the vigor of Ai’s fairy-horror narratives in Dread and stands firmly with the dynasty-naming skills displayed in Harryette Mullen’s Sleeping with the Dictionary. Throughout 69 dynamic poems, his use of documentary and investigative poetics incorporates intimate scenarios that engage current topics ripped from contemporary news headlines. Continue reading “Book Review: Someone You Love is Still Alive”