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Listening to Africa by Diana M. Raab

April 11, 2012 by

Listening to Africa by Diana M. Raab are the poet’s thoughts on her trip to Africa in 2008.  The poems are not about Africa and the events that happen there, so much as the effect the trip had on Raab and her family.  A trip motivated by death and malignancy, Raab is seeking a spiritual renewal, a way to rejuvenate her flagging will to fight.  She finds what she needs as she watches the village people struggle to clothe and feed themselves by actively pushing their crafts onto tourists and selling themselves to tourist firms as entertainment for the pampered Americans.

From "Amplified Melancholy" (page 8):

. . . and all I can tell you is that
on the tenth anniversary of dad's
passing, the doctors removed

my right breast and five years later
stabbed by a second diagnosis,
bone marrow malignancy,

no cure, just treatment --
the holiday lights sharpened.
Past dripping menorah candles,  . . .

Emotions run the gamut in this collection from fear to nostalgia for the past, and a new understanding of how the past has shaped each of us.  She sees the grandfather in her son in “Your Camera” as he approaches the world behind the viewfinder of a camera.  There is fearsome beauty in Raab’s poems as she explores the wild with her family, even though her trip is controlled.  The beauty of the sunrises and sunsets, the hidden dangers of genteel looking hippos, and the fight for survival among all nature’s creatures.  For example:  “The forces of life and death/are at play like the day I found/my grandmother dead in her bed –//” (from “The Scent of Death” on page 19) and “We are snapped into silence, the comes the roar/of dragon breath and then silence again./The purple scarred panorama lingers//” (from “Balloon Rides” on page 21).

Readers will become steeped in the melancholy and the tentative observations of Africa from which the poet is seeking to draw strength and understanding.  Like the hippo in “Hippos” and in nature, the poet has a deep, hidden strength and history of survival from which to draw from as she fights what ails her, but also the cancers have their own hidden strengths and it is clear there will be a battle of wills.  “Our jeep arrived at sunset//at the edge of their swamp/as their big papa sat and stared/deep into our foreign eyes, long enough//to bring ten more in his company,/as if this army could infiltrate/our veins with fear.  They sat proudly//” (from “Hippos” on page 43) illustrates the duel going on within the poet between the cancer cells staring her down eager to win the battle, and her doing the same as she gathers her inner strength and support systems around her.

Listening to Africa by Diana M. Raab is a wonderful reminder that we each struggle for survival, though we all may not live in the wilds of the jungle.  Raab is a talented poet who takes her memorist talents and weaves them into imagery and verse that creates emotional tension and verse readers can reflect upon and apply to their own lives.

Poet Diana Raab

About the Poet:

Diana M. Raab is a memoirist, essayist and poet. She has a B.S. in Health Administration and Journalism, and an RN degree from Vanier College in Montreal, in addition to an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Spalding University’s Low-Residency Program.

Diana has been writing from an early age. As a child of two working parents, she spent a lot of time crafting letters and keeping a daily journal. A journaling advocate and educator, Diana teaches creative journaling and memoir in workshops around the country. She frequently speaks and writes about the healing powers of writing.

 

This is the 6th book for my 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

***For today’s National Poetry Month blog tour stop, please visit Necromancy Never Pays.***

Filed Under: challenges, Events, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, national poetry month, poetry, Read in 2012, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Virgin Journals by Travis Laurence Naught

April 9, 2012 by

Imagine a life in which everything is viewed from a wheelchair or from the arms of someone moving you from the bed to the chair and back again.  The Virgin Journals by Travis Laurence Naught is that story and more.   Naught was diagnosed as an infant with incurable spinal muscular atrophy, and his poems and prose speak with a frankness that is not only raw but unsettling.  Do we want to truly know what he’s thinking as he sits in his wheelchair and cannot decide to go to war as a soldier or to even have a choice about what he does physically?  His collection reads much like the confessional poets of Sexton and Plath with its brash ambition to tell it like it is without sugar coating, but in many ways it is not as sophisticated in that there are no mysterious images to unravel.  He puts it all out there without pretense and the poems read more like journal entries.

From "All You Need is Touch" (Page 75):

Feeling like a pain in the ass
Is no fun for anyone
But I get by every day
By needing
Basic life functions
From "Big Mouth" (Page 50):

Do not treat me with distrust
For I have not lied
Only told the truth too much

The collection is broken into three sections:  Life, Love, and World.  It is likely to make readers uncomfortable in that the narrator of these poems is constantly frustrated, deprived of human touch/contact, and full of lust.  To truly understand the plight of someone stuck in a wheelchair, these poems can do just that, but the poems appear to be prose broken up into lines and stanzas arbitrarily.  Moreover, there are more poems here that read like stream of consciousness prose and late-night confessions that normally would not see the outside of a drawer.  They are raw and unflinching.

Some poems are more typically poetic than others, but it is clear that writing is an outlet for Naught as he struggles daily with his lack of physical freedom and desire for more out of life. From “Lack of Physicality” to “Movie in Mind,” Naught’s poetic talents shine as he weaves in images to display how we are all human and struggle with our own limitations.  These are the gems of the collection.  Readers may want to dip into the collection over a period of time rather than read it from beginning to end so that they can take in the heavy emotions put forth by the narrator.  The Virgin Journals by Travis Laurence Naught is a good debut from a writer who clearly has more to say and more to explore in terms of poetry and prose.

Poet Travis Laurence Naught

About the Poet:

Travis Laurence Naught is poetry/prose writer … college graduate … former Division 1 college men’s basketball assistant … quadriplegic wheelchair user.  Join him on Facebook and on Twitter.

***For today’s National Poetry Month blog tour stop, go to the bookworm.***

 

 

 

This is the 5th book for my 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

This is my 24th book for the 2012 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, Events, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2012, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Real Courage by Michael Meyerhofer

April 8, 2012 by

Real Courage by Michael Meyerhofer is a chapbook that showcases a unique perspective and use of imagery and comparison.  Much like “BPM 37093” (Page 5), Meyerhofer takes often wildly different images and situations together in comparisons that generate an “aha” from the reader after a momentary question mark hovers over their heads.

A smoldering white dwarf
like our own pyrite-colored sun may be.
Proof that after a solar relationship
ends, like most relationships,
with a fiery, bloating rampage
followed by a crash diet
down to blistered, white-hot corestuff,
the leftover carbon crystallizes
into a two-septillion-ton rock

However, in “The Great Refrain” (Page 19), Meyerhofer plays with the notion of refrain in which lines are repeated in a song-like chorus. Rather, the refrain here is more of a repeated emotional response to how things have changed, seemingly more like a lament. “are the remnants of motor-skiffs/and sun-sails, bronze men hauling//titanium fishing lines, mothers/reading to their infants from books//filled with calculus and poetry./That ages before an ice-pole shifted//”  Readers also will appreciate how Meyerhofer explores ideas contrary to conventional wisdom, like comparisons of dogs to the uncivilized in “Ode to Dogs” (page 22).

Real Courage by Michael Meyerhofer is full of unconventional wisdom and unexpected images and comments that reaches beyond the typical rant or disillusionment with the modern world. There also are more personal poems here that strive to make sense of death and loss, but there are others that uncover the surprising reactions of those in society considered more reserved than the rest of us and those that shun technology. Meyerhofer explores the human condition from an unusual perspective and uses language that does not dare hide his meaning.

Poet Michael Meyerhofer

About the Poet:

Michael Meyerhofer‘s third book, Damnatio Memoriae, won the Brick Road Poetry Book Contest. His previous books are Leaving Iowa (winner of the Liam Rector First Book Award) and Blue Collar Eulogies (Steel Toe Books, finalist for the Grub Street Book Prize).

He has also published five chapbooks: Pure Elysium (winner of the Palettes and Quills Chapbook Contest), The Clay-Shaper’s Husband (winner of the Codhill Press Chapbook Award), Real Courage (winner of the Terminus Magazine and Jeanne Duval Editions Poetry Chapbook Prize), The Right Madness of Beggars (winner of the Uccelli Press 3rd Annual Chapbook Competition), and Cardboard Urn (winner of the Copperdome Chapbook Contest).

He received his BA from the University of Iowa and his MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He currently teaches poetry, creative writing, and composition at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.

 

This is my 23rd book for the 2012 New Authors Challenge.

 

This is the 4th book for my 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

***For Today’s National Poetry Month Blog Tour stop, hop over to Books, Thoughts, and a Few Adventures…***

Filed Under: challenges, Events, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2012, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove

April 5, 2012 by

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove (listen to her NPR interview, where she talks about the anthology and provides advice for young poets) collects a few poems from some of the great poets at the the height of their craft between 1900 and 2000, and while Dove notes that some of the poets who were starting to emerge in the latter portion of the century may not be included, it is merely because the anthology had to have a cutoff point and those poets may have reached the height of their craft after 2000.

Moreover, her introduction goes on to demonstrate the various turns in social movements throughout the United States and how poets and their poetry fit in with those historic changes, ranging — of course — from the backlash following the U.S. Civil War and the beginnings of WWI to the antiwar protests, the emergence of the feminist movement, and the struggle for civil rights.  Each poet’s bio is included alongside samples of their work.

“. . . and I should have written it right then, before rereading, discovering, misplacing note; before tracking down copyright dates, crunching numbers — in short, before the politics of selection could interfere with my judgment.”  (Page XXIX)

“If I could, I’d make this introduction a fold-out book.  Open to the first page, and up would pop a forest: a triangle of birches labeled Robert Frost, a solitary Great Oak for Wallace Stevens, a patch of quirky sycamores tagged William Carlos Williams, and a Dutch Elm for Hart Crane, with a double lane of poplars for Elizabeth Bishop and a brilliant autumnal maple tree marked Langston Hughes bearing leaves called Harper, Clifton, Soto.”  (Page XXX)

The selection of poems for this collection must have been a tough task, and Rita Dove employed the best tools at her disposal.  She’s spoken frankly in the introduction of the politics behind the selection of poems, particularly regarding a budget that was unable to meet the rights fees for certain poems (i.e. Plath and Ginsberg, who are notably absent from the collection, but not the introduction).  While some can not forgive this decision (i.e. Helen Vendler, whose criticisms have been widely used in college classrooms, including some I’ve attended; please also view Rita Dove’s reply to Vendler’s criticism), some readers can accept the oversight given how widely known and published some of these absent poets are and were.  Dove has even discussed the problem of “rights” in an interview with The Writer’s Chronicle, in which she said that one of the worst offenders was HarperCollins, which owns the rights to Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg (December 2011, pg. 22).  “What I hated most about this unsettling affair was seeing other, less iconic poets held hostage by the very company they had trusted to promote them,” Dove lamented in the interview after discussing how one publishing hose offered poets the option to have their poems included in the anthology if they gave up their share in royalties even though the publishing house would not.

As with any “collection of great works,” the anthology is bound to have its detractors who are dissatisfied with the selections and who lament the absence of their own favorite poets and poems.  Dove says in the introduction, “The impulse driving them all, however, stemmed from the same revelation:  that every person contains a story that, if told well, would resonate within us no matter how strange or unfamiliar the circumstances, bound as we are by the instincts and yearnings of human existence.”  (Page XXXIII)  Readers will find that some of the poems speak more to them than others, but that also is expected in a collection of multiple poets with multiple styles.

Insect by Annie Finch (Page 540):

That hour-glass-backed,
orchard-legged,
heavy-headed will,

paper-folded,
wedge-contorted,
savage--dense to kill--

pulls back on backward-moving,
arching
high legs still,

lowered through a deep, knees-reaching,
feathered down
green will,

antenna-honest,
thread-descending,
carpeted as if with skill,

a focus-changing,
sober-reaching,

tracing, killing will.

There are old favorites from classics like E.E. Cummings to contemporaries like Yusef Komunyakaa. Readers will want to dip in and revisit their old poet friends, but also find the undiscovered gems from the past, present, and future. Ruth Stone, for instance, is a prolific poet, who may not be known by may readers, but her verse is so present and relatable; From “Scars” (page 178): “Sometimes I am on a train/going to a strange city,/and you are outside the window/explaining your suicide,/” Then there are Edgar Lee Masters at the beginning of the century that may be overlooked in favor of Robert Frost and other more well-known poets, despite his prolific career. From “Fiddler Jones” (page 2), “The earth keeps some vibration going/There in your heart, and that is you./And if the people find you can fiddle,/Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.” As the anthology progresses there is a distinct inclusion of more minority and female poets, like Reetika Vazirani and Terrance Hayes.

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove is one perspective on American poetry over the last century, while it touches upon each of the social and poetical movements in the nation, it does skew the reality of the poetic realm a little bit by being unable to include certain icons and including newer poets who may or may not have proved their historical impact on the world of poetry to the satisfaction of everyone.  However, the inclusion of new voices is always a blessing when so much of poetry is consider classic and iconic from Frost’s New Hampshire woods to Ginsburg’s outspoken Howl.  Dove’s anthology is a collection to be dipped into time and again to visit old favorites and delve into the images and verse of new voices who have emerged in the latter part of the 20th century.

Poet Rita Dove

About the Editor:

Rita Dove, born in Ohio, served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995 and as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She has received numerous literary and academic honors, among them the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and, more recently, the 2003 Emily Couric Leadership Award, the 2001 Duke Ellington Lifetime Achievement Award, the 1997 Sara Lee Frontrunner Award, the 1997 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, the 1996 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities and the 1996 National Humanities Medal.

 

 

This is the 3rd book for my 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

***For Today’s National Poetry Month Blog Tour post, hop over to Unabridged Chick***

Filed Under: challenges, Events, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, national poetry month, Penguin, poetry, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2012, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Auroras by David St. John

April 4, 2012 by

The Auroras by David St. John is broken into three distinct sections:  Gypsy Davy, In the High Country, and The Auroras.  In this triptych of poems, “In the High Country” is flanked by the smaller sections “Gypsy Davy” and “The Auroras” but what ties the sections together is not a cohesive story as in Emma Eden Ramos’ Three Women, but a set of emotions ranging from unrest to pain and melancholy.  Both expressions of a poetic triptych are effective, but St. John’s is a little more subtle in its attempts at cohesiveness.

However, within these subtle lines and images, there are real gems, leaving conclusions and epiphanies with the reader, like in “The Aurora of the New Mind” (Page 4):

Still I look a lot like Scott Fitzgerald tonight with my tall
Tumbler of meander & bourbon & mint just clacking my ice
To the noise of the streetcar ratcheting up some surprise

I had been so looking forward to your silence
& what a pity it never arrived

Click for Tour Schedule

But even with these offhand remarks do not end the discourse of the poem; the narrator’s desire for silence is powerful and he has not qualms about uttering it aloud, but is he happy when he receives it or is he unsettled by the granting of that wish? Through subtle images and seemingly forthright comments, the narrator has brought to the surface questions of how when we receive our desires the result may be less adequate than expected. Following that train of thought, “Shopenhauer’s Dog Collar” (Page 14) speaks to the dissatisfying nature of desire fulfilled as Shopenhauer himself did in some of his philosophical works and the disillusionment of that realization in “Three Jade Dice” (Page 8-9):

I wish I could tell you that it's time for coffee
I wish I could tell you that the card table

Carved of onyx & ivory
Supports a life of orgasmic hope & certain prosperity

I wish I could tell you the legs of the piano reach
All the way to the ground as

I wish I could tell you the melody of the forgotten
Is as beautiful as the melody of the desired

“In the High Country” has poems that set the narrator apart from the action of each poem as events and moments — regretful and heartbreaking moments — are witnessed and observed in a helpless state, especially in “From a Bridge” (Page 23), “Waiting” (Page 24), “Human Fields” (Page 32), and “My Friend Says” (Page 34), but in “My Friend Says” the narrator begins to draw comparisons between himself and the subject of the poem or in some cases the “victim” of the events in the poem.

In the final section that mimics the name of the collection, the narrator becomes a mouthpiece of a higher power, speaking to the reader about the glories of the moment and how each is not perishable, but leaves a lasting imprint on the earth even if it is not explicitly seen. But there remains a questioning between the poems, a wondering about what will remain behind once one passes into the next world or simply ceases to exist. There is a reverberation of each person as we pass through the lives of one another, and those “auroras” will live on even after we have passed.

The Auroras by David St. John are at once deceptive in their simplicity and complex in their references to Fitzgerald, Shopenhaur and others, but the arc of the collection is that our beings impact one another and the world around us in even the most unapparent ways. And while we lament the passing of our family, friends, and those who have sought to move on without us to other places and times, their indelible marks remain as do our own.

About the Poet:

Prizewinning poet David St. John is the author of ten collections of poetry, including Study for the World’s Body: New and Selected Poems, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, as well as Where the Angels Come Toward Us, a volume of essays, interviews, and reviews. He is the co-editor, with Cole Swenson, of American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry. He teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Venice Beach.

***For today’s National Poetry Month Blog Tour stop head over to Diary of an Eccentric.***

Want to win a copy of The Auroras for yourself?  Go enter.

This is the 2nd book for my 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 22nd book for the 2012 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, Events, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, Harper Collins, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2012, reviews Tagged With: , ,

LGBT Poetry

February 28, 2012 by

Today’s monthly poetry event is sponsored by Kelly at The Written World, so go over there and link up your poetry post for February!

After reading and reviewing Resilience edited by Eric Nguyen last week, I started thinking about all the poetry I’ve read and how universal it is.  I really pay little to no attention to what poets are LGBT and which poets are not.  Most of us know that Walt Whitman was gay, as was Oscar Wilde.  But what other classic and contemporary poets are/were LGBT? And could you tell by reading their poetry or were the verse more cryptic about it or more universal in scope?

While I am curious about how many published LGBT poets there are in contemporary society compared to those from the past, I’m more interested in whether we should bother categorizing our artists in this way.  Do we really need to know the sexual orientation of our poets in order to enjoy their art form?  Does it affect how we see their work and whether or not we enjoy it?  And does their poetry have to focus on the struggles of their oppressed minority or can it be broader in focus?

Just some food for thought.  I’d like to hear what everyone has to say.

For now, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite poems from Resilience edited by Eric Nguyen:

The Straight Boys Kiss by Rene Cardona

so they sit
and stare into the air
the secrets texted
make them nervous
more each second
so they lean in--
the smiles stop,
and stares shoot
like evening stars
to the lips of the one across.

For those in NYC:

On March 17 at 3-5PM, an Open Mic night will be held for contributors to the collection at WordUP Books.

For more information about the Resilience project, visit the blog.

I hope you’ll consider joining the 2012 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge.

For those in the challenge who already have reviewed poetry volumes in February, please put your full links in the Mr. Linky below:

Filed Under: announcements, challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge Tagged With: , ,

Resilience Edited by Eric Nguyen

February 24, 2012 by

Resilience edited by Eric Nguyen is a collection of essays, poems, stories, and advice for young gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender teens and young adults, but there are lessons in these stories for everyone, including those that bully, talk down to, or otherwise belittle people.  The world would be a much better place if we were secure in ourselves and didn’t give others’ hate speech the credence that we do or given them the power over our own lives, but those of us who need support, deserve a system of people and community willing to stand up for others.

The collection has some powerful short stories and inspiring essays, and there are poems that demonstrate the pain, confusion, and bullying that LGBT teens experience daily.  It is both heartbreaking and inspiring.  There are letters to the younger self, plays, monologues, and more.  While some of these cry out the injustices experienced by the writers or their characters, others share the regret of not stepping forward to defend their friends and family from bigots and those narrow minded people who tortured and ostracized others because they were different.

From When the Bully Apologizes by J.J. Sheen(page 79):

“Something about the stillness of sitting there in the dark with Marie’s hand all wrapped up in mine made everything boiling inside me fall out and I started crying in a way that I had never allowed myself to.  I tucked my head into my hands and felt like I might be stuck that way forever.  I felt so embarrassed and exposed and wrong and sitting next to the only person who really knew me, I felt lonelier.”

Emma Eden Ramos, whose poetry collection Three Women: A Poetic Triptych and Selected Poems was nominated for the 2011 Indie Lit Awards, offers a genuine short story, “Where the Children Play,” that will have readers by turns anxious and hopeful.  These are the stories readers will cling to, hoping that the world will begin to emulate the acceptance and the unconditional love in these pages.  Readers may have a tough time reading the collection cover to cover, but its meant to unsettle conventional thoughts and open readers’ eyes to the struggles of LGBT teens as they struggle to find themselves and “come out” to their friends, parents, and loved ones.  Although they may accept themselves, telling someone who has a different perception of you is a conversation wrought with fear and longing.

Resilience edited by Eric Nguyen is a collection for not only the community it represents in its stories, poems, and essays, but also for those of us who need to be reminded that these teens are people struggling with issues that go beyond what clothes to wear and what activities to engage in at school and outside of it.  For those without role models or who live in cloistered families with traditional beliefs, this can be restrictive and even more difficult to overcome.

For those in NYC:

On March 17 at 3-5PM, an Open Mic night will be held for contributors to the collection at WordUP Books.

For more information about the Resilience project, visit the blog.

 

This is my 13th book for the 2012 New Authors Challenge.

 

 

This is the 1st book for my 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, essays, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, fiction, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2012, reviews, short stories Tagged With: ,

Reason to Drool Over Poetry

January 31, 2012 by

I’ve read a number of posts over the years from fellow bloggers about their love/lust of authors from the Book Lady’s Panty Throwing to bloggers like Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin?’s spotlights on the books she’s drooling over.  I know that we all drool over actors and various book series and more, but when it comes to poetry, many people shy away or turn their backs.

I’ve got a little incentive for you to consider reading poetry or looking at the poets who make the poems.  Have you heard of the Naked Muse 2012 Calendar? If you follow my Facebook/Twitter updates, you may have when I shared the Huffington Post article on this little gem.

(I want to formally thank Anna since she sent it to me at a time I was struggling on what to write about for my first poetry post)

I really love that these poets decided to bare all for a good cause — see poets aren’t always purposefully confusing and there to just drive you crazy with seemingly incongruous allusions and metaphors.  In fact, their meanings can be as plain as the skin that they bare to the camera.  I’d love to see some American poets get in on this little project.

I like the idea that 100% of the profits will be used to help those with Type 1 Diabetes through research at JDRF.

What contemporary or classic poets would you like to see in a naked calendar?  What is your poetry post about today?

I hope you’ll consider joining the 2012 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge.

For those in the challenge who already have reviewed poetry volumes in January, please put your full links in the Mr. Linky below:

Filed Under: announcements, challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge Tagged With: , , ,

2011 Reading Challenge Results and More

December 30, 2011 by

I knew at the end of last year that I had signed up for too many reading challenges, especially since the little one was going to be born early on in the new year (2011), but I signed up for a ton anyway.

For those who are interested, I’m going to share with you some results.  First I read 107 books this year, which is a feat considering the life changes of a new baby and house that occurred.  I finished 2 read-a-longs (IT by Stephen King and Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles), but failed a third (Villette by Charlotte Bronte).  I hosted my own challenge — 2011 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, which wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped, but was renewed for 2012.

Ok, the challenges I failed to complete are:

  • 2011 Audio Book Challenge, which I signed up for 3 audio books and only listened to 1.  I had grand plans for listening to 2 others, but alas, with no commute and working from home, that didn’t happen.
  • Nordic Reading Challenge 2011, which I signed up to read 3 books, particularly those by Steig Larsson that I’ve wanted to read forever.  It just didn’t happen.
  • 2011 Sookie Stackhouse Reading Challenge, which was informal with Dar of Peeking Between the Pages, and I’m not sure if she read any either.  I only have to read beginning with book 5 through the rest, but it didn’t happen either.

These are the challenges I completed:

Ireland Reading Challenge, which I signed up to read 2 books.

Wish I’d Read That Challenge 2011, which I signed up to read 3 books and actually read 18.

2011 New Authors Reading Challenge, which I signed up to read 25 new-to-me authors and read 77.

2011 U.S. Civil War Challenge that I co-host with Anna and barely finished with just three books.

2011 Fearless Poetry Exploration Challenge that I signed up to read 5-10 books and actually read 33.

South Asian Reading Challenge, which I signed up to read 3 books.

Finally, even though the Reagan Arthur Challenge is perpetual, I’m dropping this from my list because I never seem to get to the books.

This year I’m experimenting with selling my Best of 2011 list to those interested for $9, and the list includes just poetry and fiction since that’s mainly what I read and review here.  Anyone who wants the list can send payment through PayPal to savvyverseandwit AT gmail DOT com or if you need other arrangements send me an email, and I will email you the link and password for the list.

In 2012, I hope to read as much or more books, finish all my challenges, and have lots of fun with the blog and reading. I also plan to get back to writing…

Filed Under: 2011 Audio Book Challenge, challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, Ireland Challenge, New Authors Challenge, Nordic Reading Challenge, Reagan Arthur Challenge, sookie stackhouse reading challenge, South Asian Reading Challenge, U.S. Civil War Challenge 2011, Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2011

Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni

December 23, 2011 by

Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni hums with the rhythm of spoken word poetry and the jazz of human experience.  Each poem carries with it an essence that reflects the Black experience from the capture and transportation of slaves and what that should teach us about how to treat people to the lessons we carry with us once our relatives die.  Her poetry is frank and honest, but it pulls no punches to ensure that readers understand that there are deep wrongs that can be learned from as long as we are willing to look at them closely.  It may be difficult to review past transgressions without jumping to defend or shy away from shame, but her poems cause you to meet those challenges head on and to learn from our own follies.

At other times, her verse decries the blind eye that we turn every day to our own situations and histories, wishing that there were a different outcome or social norm.  Giovanni’s poems focus a bit on the Black experience, but in many ways her verse and perspective transcends beyond those parameters to reach out to all of humanity.  From “Possum Crossing” (page 5), “All birds being the living kin of dinosaurs/think themselves invincible and pay no heed/to the rolling wheels while they dine/on an unlucky rabbit//”

Giovanni also takes her readers on a historic journey through the struggle for civil rights and equality in poems dedicated to Gwendolyn Brooks and poems about Martin Luther King and more.  Her poems aren’t just about the past, but about contemporary people and events and the strength and conviction they display.  Her poems range from the traditional free verse to the narrative prose-like poems that read like a stream of consciousness.

From “Symphony of the Sphinx” (page 19):

“I have to remember Africa each night as I lay me down to
sleep The patchwork quilt my Great-Grandmother patched
one patch two patches three patches more I learned to count by
those patches I learned my numbers by those patches the ones
that hit and the many thousand gone I learned my patience by
those patches that clove to each other to keep me warm”

Giovanni’s imagery and matter-of-fact tone tells it like it is without pretense, and readers will take a journey with her through her own life experiences.  “Talk to me, Poem . . . I’m all alone . . . Nobody understands what/I’m saying . . . ” from “Shoulders Are for Emergencies Only” (page 15) is a lament that resurfaces, but readers nod in agreement as Giovanni expresses each observation.  “We hear you,” they will say.  There is a patchwork of poetry here that weaves history with the present and struggle with joy to generate the warmth family, friends, and life can bring.  Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni is sensational and touching.

Books & Interviews With Nikki Giovanni:

This is my 33rd book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, Harper Collins, poetry, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2011, reviews Tagged With: ,

2012 Challenges

December 16, 2011 by

I’m still working on finishing up my 2011 challenges, which I absolutely went overboard on.  But in the meantime, while I’m preparing for the holiday festivities and finishing up challenges and making the Best of list, I wanted to get out there with two challenges I will definitely be participating in.

Ok, yes, they are challenges I have a hand in creating, but that’s just half the fun.

First, I’ll be signing up for the Wade level (4-10 books) in the WWI Reading Challenge at War Through the Generations.  I know one of the books will be A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway since it is the book that we selected for the mid-year read-a-long.

I hope you’ll consider joining us in the new year for some reading about The Great War.

Second, I’ll be joining my own Fearless Poetry Exploration challenge by reading and reviewing books as usual.  But I also hope to make the National Poetry Month blog tour even better and bigger than it has been in the past.  Also, I hope to get some more discussion going during the Virtual Poetry Circles on Saturdays.

I hope you’ll consider joining too, since there are so many more options for those concerned about reviewing poetry books.  There are new ways to participate.

Also, as an aside, I hope you’ll get your nominations in for the Indie Lit Awards in the poetry category and the others.  You have until Dec. 31, 2011, to nominate up to 5 books published this year.

Finally, I’ll be joining the Finishing the Series Challenge over at Socrates’ Book Reviews.

I’m going to be ambitious and finish 2 series of books and I’m shooting for James Patterson’s Alex Cross series and the Sookie Stackhouse series.  For the Sookie series, these are the ones I have left to read:

  1. Dead as a Doornail (Book #5)
  2. Definitely Dead (Book #6)
  3. All Together Dead (Book #7)
  4. From Dead to Worse (Book #8)
  5. Dead and Gone (Book #9)
  6. Dead in the Family (Book #10)
  7. Dead Reckoning (Book #11)
  8. Deadlocked (Book #12) – expected publication: May 1, 2012

However, I may change my mind about what series to finish since I have started quite a few and not finished them.

 

***Update 1/5/12***

Since I’ll be reading more from my own books this year, I want to sign up again for the Ireland Reading Challenge.  This level has changed since last year, but I’m still sticking with the Shamrock Level, which is now 4 books.

I don’t have a planned set of reads, but I’d like to read Dubliners this year, so that’s definitely on the list of books.

 

 

I love this challenge.  I can use books from other challenges, and I’m always reading new-to-me authors.  I just adore this one, and I always seem to surpass my goal on this one.  This year, I’m still signing up for 25 authors, but I’ll be sure to meet and exceed that goal.

 

Which reading challenges are you joining?

Filed Under: challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, Finishing the Series Reading Challenge, Ireland Challenge, New Authors Challenge, WWI Reading Challenge 2012 Tagged With: , , , ,

Soul Clothes by Regina D. Jemison

November 25, 2011 by

Soul Clothes by Regina D. Jemison is slim collection of poems that explore the Black experience from a spiritual perspective.  She has quite a bit to say about the struggles Black men have with confidence, kicking habits, staying with their women, but she also has a lot to say about her own experiences and even the civil rights movement.

“writing illuminates injustice
gives language to people’s pain
pictures to failing dreams” (From “Because a door in my soul opens”, page 5)

Broken into three sections — God Gave Me Words, Soul Clothes, and Divine Reflections — and the first section tackles wider societal topics of struggle and faith, while the Soul Clothes section tackles similar struggles on a more personal level.  In the final section, Jemison reflects on those struggles and what they teach each of us about ourselves and our place in the world, as well as how fleeting life really is.

“Civil rights activists told me to fight the battle

They didn’t tell me
I’d be weary, exhausted, disgusted, betrayed, disenchanted” (From “Hold on to God, a lawyer’s prayer”, page 7)

Some poems have an internal jazz-like rhythm with a message. However, this collection’s poetry is direct and without frills, and in many ways read less like poetry and more like sermons or pep talks.  All of these poems are direct and strive to get readers thinking about today’s world and the struggles of Black men and women.  Readers will enjoy her frankness, and her faith is strong.  Soul Clothes by Regina D. Jemison is a spiritual collection that strives to provide readers with an inside look at the Black experience and the strength of faith.

Since this was published in 2011, it is eligible for this year’s Indie Lit Awards.

 

This is my 71st book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 32nd book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2011, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,