Friends write books Chris Hosea reviews stuff

Peasants, by Brad Flis. Patrick Lovelace Editions, $12. For about a year, from 1995 to 1996, I worked in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto’s regime retained the small U.S. consultancy that hired me as its Sialkot field office manager. In addition to soccer balls, cricket gear, and leatherwear, Sialkot manufa

Black Life, by Dorothea Lasky. Wave Books, 2010, $14. Each word has the same weight, loud as brass bells. I am still thinking of the second, the sixth, but the storyline keeps moving me, moving on. I feel these stories of pain and joy. The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths. Ligh

The Difficult Farm, by Heather Christle. Octopus Books, $12. Forgive me, friends, for looking at this book through poetry-colored glasses. Heather Christle’s lyrics in The Difficult Farm have a great deal to share. Of love, bitterness, generosity, fortune cookies, heartache, empowerment, beasts, and

Iowa, by Travis Nichols. Letter Machine Editions, $14 Nostalgia gets a stern rap. Don’t indulge in it, poets tell each other, thinking, I think, of the OED editors’ second take on the word, viz., “Sentimental longing for or regretful memory of a period of the past, esp. one in an individual’s own li