Kim Vodicka is a sultry seductive poetess who crafts raw poignant poems about love addiction. The Elvis Machine from CLASH Books is a collection of reflective morning after verses and happy ending odes to pillow princesses. One rendezvous read inside The Elvis Machine and you will fall for this orgasmic love poet. Vodicka’s voice is an erotic blend Kim Addonizio, Anais Nin and Kathy Acker. This Memphis poet pens tempting carnal poems of passionate heartbreak. The Elvis Machine is filled with seductive poems that will spark an instant addiction. Vodicka’s memorable bittersweet love verses, will satisfy your poetic cravings.

The breathless, unique poems of Gina Tron’s Star 67 resemble being hurled through a particular type of darkness, punctuated by dazzling and terrifying light shows that define pieces such as “Let Me In,” “Inside The Dome,” and the intensely vivid title poem. This collection, whose title is significant to the larger scope of this remarkable book, is broken down into three distinct, yet profoundly connected, sections. I recommend reading Star 67 twice. There are two different journeys to take. One is through that darkness. The other is through a series of intensely personal and creative sketches of survival and strangeness.

Crystal Stone covers substantial ground—a mother’s death, poverty, addiction, Christianity, coming of age—with a surprisingly light hand and impressive formal range; included are prose poems, found poems, concrete poems, list poems, among others. Stone handles both form and subject matter with careful attention. Her poems are observant, descriptive, and evocative: “I’ll teach ‘em how to cook daddy’s squirrel potpie,/ rub pork ribs the right way,/mash potatoes like a man and baconwrap their vegetables tight.” The wry, frank voice is what pulls all of these poems together, what the person watching you on the train must sound like.

You don’t want to be trite, and simply say Sometimes Things (Don’t) Work Out by Estefania Munoz is an act of tremendous courage. Yet that is the most straightforward and accurate takeaway I have from this overwhelming, achingly beautiful collection of poems. The occasional stunning illustration highlights Munoz’s words, which often immerse us thousands of vivid miles beneath her depictions of grief, terror, and what motivates us to become who we want to be. With both of these elements in a single volume, depicted as they are by an essential creative mind, Sometimes Things (Don’t) Work Out is poetry that must be read and appreciated in 2019.

Troy Howarth’s third volume in the So Deadly, So Perverse series is a tome of information for film aficionados. Whereas the first two entries focused on familiar Italian Giallo films, the third one gives equal devotion to other lesser known entries and homages from different countries. Each entry includes a brief synopsis and information on home video editions. But it is in the reviews where the book really shines. Coupled with dazzling poster art and production stills, Howarth’s book will make you want to rewatch well-known films like Klute or Black Christmas or discover genre darlings like Tango of Perversion.

With the knowledge that reflection, like creation, inherits nothing, poet Aviya Kushner, in Eve and All the Wrong Men, draws note from stone and makes music of the locality that resides in looking back. While whole days go missing from reader and writer alike, Kushner’s Eve, with her extra moments, returns art to art as the past taps melancholy as its future hire. These are poems of reclaim and removal, plaintively progressive, and in each a prolonged brevity bells visions for an eyesight untethered that sees Adam absorbed into the loneliness of she who creates herself second and then watches as god is devoured by a belief that’s eating for two. If one can picture a bottle of milk as perhaps the first thing broken by a child crawling into a refrigerator, then one can believe there is a rib warmer than the others. If one has no backstory, then one can narrate an imaginary dream. So it is with if, and so it is with then. Here: If Eve, then Eve.

I was first impressed by Jordan A. Rothacker’s earlier collection, The Pit, And No Other Stories, and his latest, Gristle: Weird Tales, doesn’t disappoint. Veering into uncanny, humorous, and philosophically engaging realms, Gristle is akin to The Outer Limits with its varied subject matter. Although you may not be able to fully relate to every scenario or character, you cannot help but marvel at the assured storytelling on display. While some stories, such as the opening “Taking the Bone,” failed to connect with me, others like “Something That Happened a Long Time Ago” and “Augustus and Anastasia” are mini masterpieces.