Peripheral Visions is Gail Griffin’s account of the effects of macular degeneration on her eyesight and her spirit. Through metaphor and myth, persona and projection, anecdote and allegory, she wrenches new visions from the ruins of the old.

Book Reviews

In Peripheral Visions, Gail Griffin poignantly portrays the challenges of macular degeneration. Using a blend of metaphor, myth, persona, and even haiku, she vividly captures the emotional and physical dimensions of vision loss through wonderfully lyrical poems. Griffin’s poetic journey through the loss of vision is marked by moments of startling clarity and beauty, such as in “The Payoff” where she imagines a world heightened by other senses—"A tongue / that pierces the honey to taste the calyx / on a Tanzanian hill.” These poems are essential reading for anyone with typical vision, as they open a door to a new understanding and compassion for those experiencing vision loss. This captivating chapbook stands as a beacon of hope, illustrating that even as the central vision fades, the periphery continues to hold untold wonders and depths. Griffin is one of the most engaging

-Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press)

About the Author

Gail Griffin is the author of four books of nonfiction, most recently Grief’s Country: A Memoir in Pieces. Her first poetry collection, Omena Bay Testament, won the Wilder Prize from Two Sylvias Press, and one of its poems was honored with a Pushcart Prize in 2024. She has one previous chapbook, Virginals (Seven Kitchens Press).Gail has won both the nonfiction and the poetry contests at New Ohio Review, and her work in both genres is widely available. She lives and writes in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

LISA ALLETSON (2022) Lisa Alletson grew up in South Africa and England, and now lives in Toronto. Her debut chapbook, Good Mother Lizard, won the Headlight Review 2022 poetry prize, and is included on The Lonely Crowd's 'Books of the Year’ list. Lisa’s writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best MicroFiction. Her words have been published in New Ohio Review, Crab Creek Review, Pithead Chapel, Gone Lawn, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Typehouse Magazine, Emerge Journal, among others. She’s on Twitter at @LotusTongue. You can read more of her published work at www.lisaalletson.com.

Book Launch Virtual Reading: Part 1

Book Launch Virtual Reading: Part 2

Book Reviews

“In Good Mother Lizard, we encounter visceral poems written with a sharp precision and urgent transparency. Through these introspective yet accessible poems we empathize with the speaker’s sense of isolation, yet a fierce integrity of conscience also shines through. “I close my eyes. / Fall / as a / wet word / into the Namib desert,” writes Alletson in her dazzling debut collection. These are candid, vital poems which blaze through our eyes into our conscience, penetrating the landscape of our souls.”

— JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ, NEA Fellow and author of The Fire Eater

"Lisa Alletson writes as an archaeologist guide in twenty-seven stunning, often-surreal poems that feature unfolding life layers. Her mother tongue (and mother lizard) is authentic and honest throughout. In this award-winning debut collection, Alletson creates an unflinching, sensory field guide slash diary. Each poem entry is infused with her memorable imagination: a girl with quilted hands, cold planets in a throat, a dress and girl that are shadows, a rogue cotton sycophant, fog beetle performing a handstand, blue moth night brushed with sleeping pills, thrum and ashes.”

—AMY BARNES, author of Mother Figures and Ambrotypes

Good Mother Lizard doesn't back down from the challenges of motherhood, mental health issues, or the death of a sister and father. Instead, Lisa Alletson faces them head-on. Even when they "burn open her eyes" revealing "freckles are holes" and DNA is worn "like a casualty" she still savors how an apricot's stone is "tangled like jazz." For Lisa, finding beauty, no matter how devastating, is an act of defiant survival.

TINA MOZELLE BRAZIEL, Philip Levine prize-winner for Known by Salt

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Stuart Ziarnik is the author of the chapbook, The Vulture. A native of Connecticut, he lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and daughter. He is currently working on a novella. Visit stuartziarnik.com for more updates.

Book Reviews

“Ziarnik’s existential nightmare confirms all of our worst fears: that the cost of living is peace of mind. The Vulture expertly plumbs the nature of coincidence and meaning in an often meaningless world, offering, by way of its tightly constructed sentences and insights, the consolation of art.”

—Garrard Conley, author of Boy Erased, Truman Capote Fellow

Somehow both relatable and mysterious, The Vulture is a tightly written story of escalating tension, from its first sentence to its last. I not only couldn’t put it down, I couldn’t stop talking about it when I did. Ziarnik expertly blurs the lines between who we are with the lights on and those dark, frantic corners of our obsessive minds. It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything that so precisely captures how it feels to be alive right now, right here, today.”

—Anne Corbitt, author of Rules for Lying, John and Renee Grisham Fellow

“With fight-tight prose and a mastery of nuance reminiscent of Hitchcock, Ziarnik uses the metaphor of a vulture’s sudden and unexplained presence in the neighborhood to evoke the steady escalation of terror the world experienced in the Covid pandemic of 2020.”

—Melanie Sumner, author of How to Write a Novel, National Endowment of the Arts Fellow

Dr. Anietie Isong has worked as a corporate writer for some of the biggest brands in the world. His first novel, Radio Sunrise, won the 2018 McKitterick Prize. His collection of short stories, Someone Like Me, published in 2020, won the first annual Headlight Review Chapbook Prize. In 2021, Isong’s essay was included in Of This Our Country, a ground-breaking anthology celebrating acclaimed Nigerian writers. He has spoken at the Aké Arts and Book Festival, Henley Literary Festival, Marlborough Literature Festival, among other literary festivals. Isong holds a PhD in New Media and Writing. Follow him on Twitter: @anietie_isong