Reviews & Interviews

Reviews:

"In her ethereal poem “Anticipatory Grief as Phases of Moons,” selected by Diane Seuss as the winner of this year’s James Hearst Poetry Prize, Tara Mesalik MacMahon describes the feeling of all-pervasive grief as an elusive thing that “I cannot un-picture,” as “thoughts I cannot unthink,” as something that “I forget to understand.” Inescapable, ineffable, inexplicable. Grief has a way of folding time into itself so that you exist in a perpetual state of memory and anticipation, neither waxing nor waning but doing both at once. 

— Praise from “From The Editors" after winning the 2024 James Hearst Poetry Prize

“Barefoot Up the Mountain is a book of songs anchored in family, war, loss and displacement. Every poem is scaled in tongues of land and language, where the reader is instructed to “[b]ring / the light for no reason / but to bring it.” In these pages, we are guided by sound and image—a knowing voice, a traveled voice. We are made tender by such turns “in the half-light of half-dark,” in places so brief they stretch us further into the fields as we dream up the mountain.”

— Khaty Xiong, author of Poor Anima

“Tara Mesalik MacMahon’s poems wrench readers into the childhood memories of their speaker, offering lush visuals that truly bring us into her life. Lingering on sadness, nostalgia, and hope, these poems converse with each other… telling us that what remains, in the end, really is “beauty we sought.” 

— Rebecca O’Bern and  Ashley Hajimirsadeghi, co-editors Mud Season Review

Interviews: