A NEW Review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens at Cultural Weekly!

"How is it even possible for a person to recover from the murder of a loved one? Or move forward with anything approaching detachment and peace? In the new chapbook Paloma by Jennifer E. Hudgens (Blood Pudding Press December 2017), the speaker’s dear friend has been brutally slain. Family and friends are stunned, in denial, angry, heartbroken. 

This book is dedicated to Lauren Kate, the speaker’s friend. The resulting poems are extremely touching; at times, they even made me cry. And at times, I laughed, too (see “Too Much,” which imagines the dead friend as playful poltergeist). With honesty and sensitivity, in Paloma the speaker deconstructs the friend’s death"

and 

"There is also no false sentimentality here. Fittingly, like a good trial lawyer trying to impress a jury, the poet layers detail upon detail, building her case. For example, in the poem “Spiders {A Lullaby},” the poet compares death to a spider, saying “Fuck that spider    I want to peer into its mouth    Count every hair and tooth     Counting your     bones    fragmented in its throat.”

For all I know, Jennifer E. Hudgens could have had a tough time writing these poems; however, the poetry in this chapbook looks and reads like the poems just flowed out, carried by the speaker’s strong, distinctive voice."

from a wonderful new review by Eileen Murphy, of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens, appearing in Cultural Weekly this week!

 read more HERE - https://www.culturalweekly.com/review-paloma-jennifer-e-hudgens/

acquire your own copy of "Paloma" HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/562664430/new-paloma-by-jennifer-e-hudgens?ref=shop_home_feat_1

Thank you very much to Eileen Murphy and Cultural Weekly.

A NEW Review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens at Swimming With Elephants Publications!

"Paloma kickstarts with 1996, a punk rock war-cry of nostalgia and a final lingering note of sadness. This, like many others in the collection, is a poem that resounds with everything oh-so-90s; but make no mistake, this is meant in the best possible way. A mixed tape soundtrack that plays like growing up, it sets the tone to whom this collection is dedicated– as much funeral dirge as it is love song for a sister and friend. The final line of the first poem rings melancholic: “Who’s gonna take care of us strays now?”

It is this echoing theme of finality, of trying to grasp the concept of loss, that carries on through the entire collection, questions of mortality and suffering scattered like the ashes of the departed, asking the question specifically in Lauren Kate is Dead: “Where the hell is this better place people are always talking about”"

part of a wonderful new review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens which appeared in a Featured Author section of SWIMMING WITH ELEPHANTS last month.

Read more here - https://swimmingwithelephants.com/2018/04/20/featured-swep-author-jennifer-e-hudgens/

Acquire your own copy of Paloma here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/562664430/new-paloma-by-jennifer-e-hudgens?ref=shop_home_active_1

A NEW Review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens at Drunk Monkeys

"“Paloma” is fascinating both in style and content. Hudgens uses interesting structural choices to create what act as staccato thoughts, which is appropriate— the collection is dedicated to their late friend Lauren, and each piece holds a memory as delicately as you would a butterfly’s wing."

from a NEW 100 Word Book Review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens.

thank you very much to Drunk Monkeys for this review.

read the rest HERE - http://www.drunkmonkeys.us/2017-posts/2018/4/11/100-word-book-reviews-paloma-jennifer-e-hudgens

acquire your own copy of "Paloma" within the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/562664430/new-paloma-by-jennifer-e-hudgens?ref=shop_home_feat_1

NEW! Paloma Reviewed at Rag Queen Periodical

"If grief is another country, Jennifer Hudgen’s poems navigate that terrain like a native. Her chapbook from the ever amazing Blood Pudding Press, is a carnivalesque romp through loss using the often sharp edges of memory, keen insight and a healthy dose of rage at what is snatched from us without warning.

These 14 prose poems, unevenly spaced, startle with their pyrotechnic wordplay, as they call up the author’s memories and reminiscences, jumping in with both feet, explicit yet honest, full of blind rage at times, yet so tender and so evocative throughout that what she grieves, grieves the reader, too."

from a new review by Michelle Reale at Rag Queen Periodical, of the new Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens

read more HERE - https://www.ragqueenperiodical.com/single-post/2018/01/08/Keep-Insight-a-Healthy-Dose-of-Rage-A-Review-of-Paloma-by-Jennifer-E-Hudgens

acquire your own copy of "Paloma" HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/562664430/new-paloma-by-jennifer-e-hudgens?ref=shop_home_active_1