REVIEW: “Lacus Odii (Lake of Hate)” by Josh Pearce

Review of Josh Pearce, “Lacus Odii (Lake of Hate)” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 66-67 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Well, this is quite a prescient poem! I had to go back and check just exactly when in 2025 this issue of Radon Journal came out — and the answer is, two days after the US presidential inauguration. Who knows whether Pearce had insider knowledge of what was to come, or is just very good at predicting the future, the first stanza of this poem cuts awfully close to home, a month on from the inauguration. Want to be thoroughly depressed? Read this poem.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Buttons and Soap” by Josh Pearce

Review of Josh Pearce, “Buttons and Soap,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 68 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The structure of the poem meant I had to read it a couple of times in different orders — once straight through, once with just the parentheticals and once with just the non-parentheticals — to see if I could determine how it should be read, because the first read through just left me confused. The parentheticals alone do make sense, and have a nice rhythm and rhyme to them; but what is left behind when they are extracted didn’t feel to me like it held together.

The upshot is that I spent more time confused about this poem than I did reading it, which unfortunately means this one didn’t work for me.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “The Experience Machine” by Mark Dimaisip

Review of Mark Dimaisip, “The Experience Machine,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 62-63 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Kudos to the editors for placing Dimaisip’s poem immediately after Whalbring’s poem reviewed here: In this ordering, Dimaisip’s reads like a sequel to Whalbring’s. If the latter poem offers up a potential future, the former provides us with a singular, specific, concrete reality of that future.

I’m not sure how I would’ve reacted to this poem on its own, but in read conjunction with the other one, I really liked it.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Aging is a Word That Means ‘Slowly Becoming a Machine'” by Marcus Whalbring

Review of Marcus Whalbring, “Aging is a Word That Means ‘Slowly Becoming a Machine’,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 60-61 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I’ve come to really love and look forward to the poetry selection in each Radon Journal issue; the poems are exceptionally curated and there’s always at least one in every issue that is really, really good. In this issue, that poem is this one: Gorgeous and raw and aching and honest. I loved it.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The World Ends With a Whimper” by Nicholas De Marino

Review of Nicholas De Marino, “The World Ends With a Whimper,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 59 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

When one starts off their piece with a call-back to such an iconic poem, it sets the reader’s expectations high. While the poem was a strong one (cleverly constructed so it could be read in multiple ways), I’m not sure the title helped rather than hindered it, especially as the title was also the opening line. I wonder what the poem would’ve been like if instead of setting things up to repeat an idea, the title was instead used to introduce something new and unexpected?

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Five Easy Hairstyles for Snake-Haired Girls” by Jelena Dunato

Review of Jelena Dunato, “Five Easy Hairstyles for Snake-Haired Girls,” Small Wonders no. 4 (October 2023): 10-11 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This poem was a twist on the standard Medusa story, from her despoilment to her eventual escape and ascension. It had a couple of good lines in it, including: “If you wanted criticism, you’d call your mother,” which is a banger.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment