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Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

May 11, 2011 by

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins is the third book in the young adult Hunger Games trilogy featuring Katniss Everdeen, Peeta, and Gale.  Readers have been raving about the series, and many are obsessed with the Peeta-Katniss-Gale love triangle.  (You can read my reviews of the previous two books, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire — IF you have not read the previous two books, be warned that this review will be full of spoilers).

Katniss has been rescued by the rebel alliance of District 13 — thought to have been destroyed by the Capitol — but Peeta was left behind to be captured by President Snow’s forces.  Beyond deciding whether or not to become the symbol — the MOCKINGJAY — of the rebellion, Katniss must further realize that she needs to make adult decisions, decisions that could impact the fate not only of the rebels, but of the human race.  Along the way, she will reconnect with Gale, her family, Finnick, and others from the Games, but she also will be hit hard by the tragedy of loss, even those losses she was too numb or too blind to notice when they occurred.  As part of her evolution, Katniss must learn to discern for herself the best course of action and how her actions impact others, as well as how each side is manipulating every move she makes.

“After about twenty minutes, Johanna comes in and throws herself across the foot of my bed.  ‘You missed the best part.  Delly lost her temper with Peeta over how he treated you.  She got very squeaky.  It was like someone stabbing a mouse with a fork repeatedly.  The whole dining hall was riveted.'” (page 244)

Collins has a firm grasp of how a young teenage girl would react to high levels of danger, betrayal, and dystopian heartbreak.  Her no-nonsense prose keeps the plot moving quickly and easily paints a picture that young and adult readers become lost in.  Time flies quickly as readers get absorbed in the rebellion, cheering on Katniss and her struggle to find her rightful place.  However, there are moments when the reader will want the plot to move more quickly or will want more action or will wonder why Collins is beating them over the head with the references to the oppressive nature and rigidity found in District 13.  At one point, it seems that the narration takes on a preachy tone as the benefits of democracy are heralded above the current, rationing-and-sharing government of District 13 and the power wielded by the dictatorship of the Capitol.  However, readers will easily forgive this digression as the action picks up once again.

What’s ironic about this third book is that Prim, Katiniss’ younger sister, seems more mature, while Katniss is still childlike and impulsive.  Prim seems to have matured in a way that Katniss, who has seen more violence, could not — perhaps because Katniss’ childhood was a place she could retreat to and feel safe.  Prim’s character development is not spelled out, but readers are likely to enjoy the new dynamic between her and her sister.  A number of secrets about the Capitol and what happened in District 13 are revealed, rounding out the trilogy.  Compared to the other books in the series, Mockingjay does not have as much action, but overall, it is a satisfactory end to this dystopian trilogy.

This is my 9th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.  I’ve wanted to read this since I pre-ordered the book from Amazon.  It’s about time I read this one.

Filed Under: Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2011, reviews, Scholastic, Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2011, young adult fiction Tagged With: ,

The Baghdad Blues by Sinan Antoon

May 10, 2011 by

Published in 2007 by small press Harbor Mountain Press, The Baghdad Blues by Sinan Antoon is a collection of poems that straddles the line between war and peace with war.  The narrator uncovers the emptiness of loss beneath the hard exterior of those consumed by the act of war, while at the same time drawing line in the sand to call out the enemy.  Each line is carefully selected for its subtle power, which can only be unleashed by an unexpected turn in the poem or in a stanza.

From “Wrinkles; on the wind’s forehead” (page 23-8)

3

the wind was tired
from carrying the coffins
and leaned
against a palm tree . . .

6

My heart is a stork
perched on a distant dome
in Baghdad
it’s nest made of bones . . .

12

the Tigris and Euphrates
are two strings
in death’s lute
and we are songs
or fingers strumming

The collection is divided into four parts, with Phantasmagoria II containing the most poems. Phantasmagoria, according to Wikipedia, “was a form of theater which used a modified magic lantern to project frightening images such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts onto walls, smoke, or semi-transparent screens, frequently using rear projection. The projector was mobile, allowing the projected image to move and change size on the screen, and multiple projecting devices allowed for quick switching of different images.”  “A Photograph” is the most illustrative of phantasmagoria in that as the narrator unfolds the image of a photograph seen in the New York Times of a young boy in Baghdad, the true horror of the event comes to life and leaps off the page through the carefully chosen, yet sparse language used by Antoon.

Unlike other poets who discuss war in vivid and disturbing imagery, Antoon focuses on the impact of war on mothers, sons, and lovers as well as an entire nation and culture.  His use of slanted images and subtle transitions sets his verse apart from other “war” poets in that it creates an ironic atmosphere as the narrator speaks of blind bravery and courage, while at the same time stripping away worries of death by setting up orderly ways in which people will be taken care of once they have died.  There is a great sense of loss in many of these poems, but there is that faint hope that love will conquer all — whether it is the love of a mother for her son or the romantic love between men and women or the love of culture.

The Baghdad Blues by Sinan Antoon is a slim volume at 42 pages that will stick with readers long after they have read each poem.  Returning to these poems, readers will uncover the irony of Antoon’s words, but also the truth behind them.  Coping with the horrible sights and sounds that surround them, Iraqis must learn to preserve their sense of self amid chaos and find direction within the confines of their circumstances.

About the Poet:

Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi-born poet, novelist, filmmaker and assistant professor at New York University. His novel I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody and his collection of poems The Baghdad Blues are written with great sophistication and a haunting sense of irony, according to The Electronic Intifada.

Read more about him at NYU Gallatin.

 

This is my 10th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 17th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 8th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge. I’ve wanted to read this volume ever since I picked it up at the last Split This Rock Poetry Festival in March 2010.

Filed Under: challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, New Authors Challenge, poetry, purchased, Read in 2011, reviews, Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2011 Tagged With: ,

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

May 4, 2011 by

Jean Kwok‘s Girl in Translation is a coming of age story involving immigrant Kimberly Chang, who comes to America with her mother from Hong Kong and finds that the land of opportunity is what you make it.  Kimberly is a smart girl and was often praised by her teachers in Hong Kong, but when she and her mother were forced to come to America following the death of her father, she finds that school is harder for her.  Facing a number of obstacles to her successful education from the language and cultural barriers to misplaced accusations of cheating and teacher bias, Kimberly must work ten times as hard as her fellow students.  But her hardships do not end with her new school, she and her mother also must repay Aunt Paula and her family for bringing them to America by working diligently in a clothing factory.

“A sheet of ice lay over the concrete, I watched my rubber boots closely, the way the toes slid on the ice, the way the heels splintered it.  Ice was something I had only known in the form of small pieces in red bean drinks.  This ice was wild ice, ice that defied streets and buildings.”  (page 5 of ARC)

Told from Kimberly’s point of view as she looks on her past, readers retrace her steps as a young girl finding her way into adolescence.  She has many of the same challenges of her American counterparts, but as she matures, finds boys attractive, and searches for peer approval, she must overcome her “foreign-ness,” cultural norms she’s grown up with on how to act ladylike, and her self-imposed separateness.

“Even now, my predominant memory of that phase of my life is of the cold.  Cold like the way your skin feels after you’ve been slapped, such painful tingling that you can hardly tell if it’s hot or cold.  It simply registers as suffering.  Cold that crept down your throat, under your toes and between your fingers, wrapped itself around your lungs and your heart. ”  (page 44 of ARC)

Kwok’s prose is full of imagery, emotion, and passion that weaves a vivid tale of poor Chinese immigrants in New York, who face a number of financial hardships — even at the hands of their family.  As depressing as their situation becomes, there are lighter moments when Kimberly remembers the joy her mother felt playing music and the awkward moments of bra shopping when her mother does not speak English and she barely speaks it.

Unlike other Asian-American stories, including those from Amy Tan, Kwok relies less on the mystical beliefs and traditions of Chinese culture and the clash between mother and daughter and more upon the love between mother and daughter and a daughter’s determination to improve their situation to craft a memorable story of growing up.  In spite of those obstacles, Kimberly maintains a sense of self.  One element that readers will enjoy is the use of skirts to quantify the Chang family’s purchases of new shoes or gum, which emphasizes the youth of the narrator.

“There’s a Chinese saying that the fates are winds that blow through our lives from every angle, urging us along the paths of time.  Those who are strong-willed may fight the storm and possibly choose their own road, while the weak must go where they are blown.  I say I have not been so much pushed by winds as pulled forward by the force of my decisions.”  (page 1 of ARC)

Overall, Girl in Translation provides a look at the life of a poor immigrant and her family and the determination that it takes to adapt and mature enough to create their own future.  Readers will become absorbed by the Chang’s plight and cheer them on as they make headway against the forces working against them.  Kwok’s novel could generate hours of discussion for book clubs as it demonstrates cultural differences, the harsh realities and bravery required to emigrate to another country, and the consequences and regret that sometimes accompany the hardest decisions we can make in our daily lives.

***If you missed yesterday’s guest post from Jean Kwok, please check it out here.

 

This is my 16th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

This is my 7th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2011, reviews, Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2011 Tagged With: ,

The Poets Laureate Anthology Edited by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt

April 29, 2011 by

The Library of Congress recently collaborated with Elizabeth Hun Schmidt to collect a select group of poems from the 43 U.S. Poets Laureate in The Poets Laureate Anthology, which lays out the poems in reverse chronological order (click for a list of the poets laureate) from the current laureate W.S. Merwin through the first poet laureate Joseph Auslander.  The table of contents also points out that poems in brackets listed for each laureate are considered their signature poems.  The collection contains a foreword by former poet laureate Billy Collins and an introduction by the editor, Elizabeth Hun Schmidt.

In the foreword, Billy Collins reveals the ceremony or lack thereof that comes with the office of U.S. Poet Laureate, noting that there is no formal naming ceremony, simply a phone call from the Librarian of Congress who selects the latest laureate.  The post does come with an office in the Jefferson Building, but each laureate approaches the appointment differently, though former laureate Howard Nemerov explained that the laureate spends more time explaining the duties he or she performs than actually accomplishing much.

Elizabeth Hun Schmidt’s introduction discusses the placement of the poet laureate’s office in a remote wing of the Library of Congress near the rooms used by U.S. House teenage pages, “You might think our country wants to both flaunt and to hide the fact that the only official job in the arts in the United States is for a poet” (page xiv of The Poets Laureate Anthology, published by W.W. Norton in association with the Library of Congress).  The office of Poet Laureate actually receives mail, and appointed laureates often travel the country exposing new people and communities to poetry, but only Robert Frost was asked to read at a presidential inauguration.

It is clear that some laureates were more active than others, engaging the community either through “brown-bag lunches,” educational projects, or through Websites and lectures.  Billy Collins is the most well-known for his work on Poetry 180, but Ted Kooser also began a project to garner a wider audience for poetry — American Life in Poetry.  Readers will applaud these poets for their commitment to a wider audience, including students, to erase the wall between readers and poetry.  Other laureates focused more on helping amateur poets hone their craft.  But each approached the office as differently as they tackle their verses, and it is this variety that makes the anthology unique, resembling a history of U.S. poetry.

Collins, like many readers, approached this anthology as a way to familiarize themselves with poetry piece-by-piece, dipping back into it over the course of their lives.  Anthologies are often created with this purpose in mind, and many are crafted to provide a reference for the best selections of a certain genre.  In this case, it’s poetry.  Each anecdotal comment from the laureates and their biographical snippets provide a backdrop for the poems that follow, but which, if any, of these poems were written while the laureates were in office is unclear.  Readers may have found it interesting to see which laureates wrote poems during their tenure and to read those poems for themselves.

Overall, The Poets Laureate Anthology edited by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt is a collection worth adding to anyone’s library shelves.  Whether looking for poems by a particular laureate or searching for a particular poem, the anthology provides a broad look at each poet’s efforts to define their moments, their lives, and humanity.  Reaching into history or dealing in the present, these laureates earned the title and executed the office with aplomb, and this anthology celebrates their accomplishments.  Readers looking to dip into poetry will enjoy this volume as much as those who dive deep into verse on a regular basis because it offers something for everyone.

 

 

This is my 9th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.


 

This is my 15th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 


***This is a part of the National Poetry Month 2011 Blog Tour.

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

City of Regret by Andrew Kozma

April 28, 2011 by

City of Regret by Andrew Kozma is broken into five parts and each section is named for some element of the city — entrances, walls, living spaces, alleys, and exits.  (You can check out my 32 Poems Magazine interview with the poet, here. And please visit Saturday’s Virtual Poetry Circle –link will be live April 30 — for a look at one of his poems).

As a prologue to the collection, Kozma begins with the poem “Dis” (page 1), which is a fictional city in Dante’s The Divine Comedy containing the lower circles of hell.  Like Dante, Kozma goes on a journey through hell, but the poet is traveling through these circles to find his father who has died and with whom he has unfinished business as he says in the final lines:  “When a ravine splits the sky, Earth’s muddy light/unearths my father.  We have much to talk about.//”  This poem sets the tone for the remainder of the collection with its melancholy and mournful tone.

In the first section — entrances — Kozma uses individual poems to explore the various ways people and other beings meet, greet, avoid, and rush toward death.  In “That We May Find Ourselves at Death” (page 8), he echoes the lines of Emily Dickinson, who could not stop for death, when he asks where you go when you are late for death?  He questions how death is confronted when it has already happened and there is no way to turn back the clock.  But in other poems — such as “Night Meeting” (page 6) — the poet evokes violent images of a dead squirrel’s body pulsating with ants to demonstrate not only the sudden impact and violence of death, but the messy aftermath that often follows.  However, death need not always be violent and unexpected, it can come silently . . . gradually like in ” Your Sketch of the Church in Mourning” (page 13):  ” . . . You step with silence,/walking out, and walk slowly.  Navigate the marble floor/softly, or you will not hear the dead/call after you.//”

The poems in the second section — walls — all seem to personify the denial that comes with the stages of grief.  In “Blood Perimeter” (page 25), the narrator speaks of embracing the grief like one would embrace rust, an illustration of how tough it is to come to terms with grief.  In many cases, the poems speak of vanishing moments and people, events that are baffling yet make sense when impermanence of relationships and life are examined and understood.  Kozma uses rhyme and repetition in these poems to ensure the narrator’s meaning is not lost among the vivid images like that of the Acropolis or the hunting dogs.

In the third section — living spaces — the stage of acceptance is discovered beyond the walls of denial, but acceptance is not as tame as the word suggests.  Accepting death means letting go of the person you lose to death and in a way the narrator suggests that you have to rip free from the notion that they are still present by figuratively setting it afire, like in “Quarantine” (page 31).  These living memories and moments of joy and anger with loved ones often resurface during the grieving process, and it is these fragments that will ease the pain of acceptance, but they also become painful.  In “The Butcher” (page 38), accepting the loss and remembering the lost one is like slitting the wrist and letting the blood flow — tortuous but necessary to purge the immediate pain of grief.  Kozma’s images in this section are both violent and jarring, but effective.

In the final sections of the collection — alleys and exits — Kozma’s poems become darker, more melancholy as the loss sets in and becomes consuming.  Whether the darkness in these poems is tied to the narrator’s lack of faith in an afterlife or merely the deep emotional scarring of grief is unclear.  However, there are tinges of hope that death brings about a renewal as the ashes of a cremated body are returned to nature.

Overall, City of Regret by Andrew Kozma is a deeply moving homage to a deceased father and acts as a guide through the journey of grief.  While a different journey than the one taken by Dante in The Divine Comedy, Kozma’s journey does take the poems’ narrator through hell and more.  This collection is deeply evocative and will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.

 

This is my 8th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 14th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

***This is a part of the National Poetry Month 2011 Blog Tour.

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

Bone Key Elegies by Danielle Sellers

April 27, 2011 by

Danielle Sellers’ Bone Key Elegies is a collection of poems published by Main Street Rag Publishing as part of its Editor’s Select Poetry Series.  (You can check out my previous 32 Poems Magazine interview with the poet, here, and one of her poems in the 81st Virtual Poetry Circle).  Unlike eulogies that praise someone upon his or her death, elegies are a lament for the dead and are often mournful.  In this vein, Sellers excels at creating memorable elegies for her sister, a lost family, and happier memories.  However, many of these poems will deceive the reader at first, beginning with scenery or a happy moment in time before turning melancholy.  Sellers’ style echoes the turn of line expected in haiku or the final couplet of Shakespearean sonnets.

However, some poems, like “The Bridge Fishers” (page 16), are less full of despair than the other beginning poems in the collection and more mischievous, especially as the narrator drives away in a boat beneath a bridge where fisherman are waiting for their first bite from the fish, only to have the engine of the boat scare the fish away.  Sellers’ poems are filled with surprises:  some shocking, some full of dark humor, and some violent.  In “Welcome to my Father’s Showroom” (page 26), readers are given a quirky picture of the showroom as a sort of maze through which the father navigates or hides to peer at customers secretly, but in the final lines, ” . . . He watches them.  In case one should step out of/line, a shotgun leans against the metal filing cabinet.  On its shaft,/his hand-print is outlined in dust.” (please check out some sample poems).

What’s surprising is that each poem has its own depth of despair and melancholy, like an elegy is supposed to have, but the depth of that sorrow generally corresponds well to the connection the narrator has with each subject.  Losing a father can be very devastating to a daughter, but is it more or less devastating to a daughter who has seen her father cheat on her mother or leave her mother?  Losing a sister at a very young age can be tragic and life changing, but is it more or less life changing than if you were to lose a sister after having lived half your life with her by your side?  These are just some of the emotional questions tackled by Sellers’ poems, and Bone Key Elegies is an excellent examination of the various levels of melancholy and despair that individuals can experience at different intervals in their lives. It is clear that the poem about the death of a sister sets the tone for the entire collection, a tone that deepens and thins out in a see-saw of emotion.

Through rich language and vivid imagery from the Florida Keys, Sellers’ illustrates not only the brackish nature of woe, but also the desperate fight against that emotion — leaving readers breathless.

 

This is my 7th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 13th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

***This is a part of the National Poetry Month 2011 Blog Tour.

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

City of a Hundred Fires by Richard Blanco

April 26, 2011 by

Richard Blanco‘s City of a Hundred Fires is a collection published by the University of Pittsburgh Press about the Cuban-American experience, which won the 1997 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize.  (You can check out one of his poems in the 40th Virtual Poetry Circle and my take on a reading he did at the local Writer’s Center in 2009.)  The collection is broken down into two sections and each poem contains not only English, but also Spanish phrases, which readers may or may not know offhand.  Readers who are bilingual will have little trouble, though those who have a working knowledge of Spanish or don’t will be able to gather what Blanco is getting at from context clues.  Poems are either in traditional short narrative lines or in longer, more paragraph-like lines, but each tells a story, reveals a memory, and explores a bit of the Cuban-American experience.

“Crayons for Elena” on page 13 is one of the most poignant poems in the collection as it uses the box of 64 crayons to illustrate the differences in skin tones and cultures of the people the narrator encounters and the colors that represent elements from the narrator’s own culture, including pinatas and mangoes.  “. . . All these we wore down to/stubs, peeling the paper coating further and further, peeling and sharpening/until eventually we removed the color’s name.  This is for leaving the box in/the back seat of my father’s new copper Malibu, the melted collage, the butter/”  It seems that though these differences confuse the narrator and cause discomfort, eventually, these differences are forgotten and life moves beyond those variations and instead absorbs the similarities, “melting them into a collage.”

Blanco continues to straddle the Cuban culture — kept alive in family traditions such as Quinces balls — and his new home in American culture.  In a way, his traditional family culture seems foreign to the narrator as he assimilates to American traditions of turkey at Thanksgiving and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Unlike the older relatives talked about in the poems, the narrator does not kid himself that he will be returning to Cuba after the revolution; he knows that the dream of returning to the old country is just that — a dream.

At times, however, the narrator does experience moments of nostalgia, in which he remembers family events or moments.  There are other moments in which the voids left by an American culture that does not feel exactly like home are filled with reminders of a culture left behind whether those voids are filled with sake by a Japanese immigrant or by dark rum with lemon for a Cuban-immigrant.

Unlike in part one where the narrator delves into familial memories and the confusion of bridging two cultures, in the second part, the narrator has become more observant of how his home culture is mutilated and warped by the American idea of capitalism to create a caricature of Cuban life and culture, like in “El Jagua Resort” (page 43):  “where Canadians and Italians step out/drunk congas from megaphone instructions –/side-to-side, kick-then-kick, hand-to-hip;/caught in spells of tabaco, dark rum,/brown sugar, and the young mulatas/”  In a way, the little Havana created in America by the narrator’s parents’ generation is fading and being replaced, but the second part also illustrates more historical details of Cuba, the revolution, and other events.

For a slim volume of poems at 74 pages, City of a Hundred Fires by Richard Blanco will knock you on your butt with its passion, anger, and disbelief.  But it also will drag you to your feet as it clings to hope and harmony.  Overall, Blanco has crafted a diverse collection of poems on the Cuban-American experience that delves below the surface struggles of bias and loneliness to the internal struggle of one narrator and how he copes with those struggles and more.

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

 

 

This is my 12th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

***This is a part of the National Poetry Month 2011 Blog Tour.

 

Filed Under: Events, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, purchased, Read in 2011, reviews Tagged With: ,

White Egrets by Derek Walcott

April 19, 2011 by

White Egrets by Derek Walcott is a collection of deeply suggestive and blatant poems about the natural cycle of birth, life, and death and coming to terms with the later as friends, lovers, and others pass away leaving the narrator behind on the journey of life.  Each poem uses nature imagery to paint a canvas of emotion as the narrator grapples with grief, joy, and memory.

Walcott’s poems are long and narrative in many cases, which is not a form or style that calls to every reader, but even the most picky reader can easily pick out the cues that will carry them throughout the multiple part poems.

For instance, in the title poem “White Egrets” section one, readers will notice the lines “in the drumming world that dampens your tired eyes/behind two clouding lenses, sunrise, sunset,/” that signal a decline in health.  In the second section, the theme carries on in the lines “into a green thicket of oblivion,/with the rising and setting of a hundred suns/” until it culminates through a series of images and narrations in section four with the lines “and of clouds.  Some friends, the few I have left,/are dying, but the egrets stalk through the rain/as if nothing mortal can affect them, or they lift/”  and finally in section eight, “the egrets soar together in noiseless flight/or tack, like a regatta, the sea-green grass,/they are seraphic souls, as Joseph was.//”  While the poem is dreary in theme, the subject of losing ones friends slowly over time to death, it also carries along elements of immortality and being left behind as a testament to those who have passed before us.

Many of Walcott’s poems are in memory of friends, family, and others as he dedicates poems or portions of poems to them, and each takes on a meditative and reflective state as he explores their relationship and his memories of their time together.  More than just mundane relationships to our friends and family, Walcott paints a picture of humanity’s infinite connections to the past, present, and future in an effort to demonstrate how deeply we are all interconnected.  In poem 46, “catalogue of a vicious talent that severs/itself from every attachment, a bitterness whose/poison is praised for its virulence.  This verse/” Walcott harshly discusses the consequences of severing attachments, which some may actually believe is a preferable way to live.

White Egrets is a collection readers would probably tackle on a poem-by-poem basis, rather than read at once — not because they are too hard to interpret but because they tackle themes and emotions that are heavy and can weigh down the reader or provide him or her with fodder for reflection on his or her own life.  From moments in history such as the debts owed because of the Holocaust to the election of President Obama, the poet reviews moments in history and how they impact individuals.  Overall, White Egrets is a emotional roller coaster ride of longer poems that are meditative, disruptive, and thought-provoking.

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


 

This is my 11th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

This review is part of my celebration for National Poetry Month!

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

Haiku Mama by Kari Anne Roy

April 3, 2011 by

Haiku Mama by Kari Anne Roy is a slim volume of 17-syllable poems called haiku, which is a Japanese form of poetry.  Rather than celebrate the joys and beauty of nature, these haiku celebrate the joys and frustrations of new motherhood.

These little poems, including the one featured in the 91st Virtual Poetry Circle, not only will make mothers chuckle, but they also contain a bit of truth that will have them nodding “yes, yes, yes.”

The poems are cute, quick reads for busy moms and the book contains illustrations on a number of pages, though readers may wish for more apt illustrations considering some of the topics addressed in the haiku.  For instance, one haiku discusses the typical technique of pretending the spoon or fork carrying the food is an airplane entering the hangar (aka the child’s mouth).  An illustration of the airplane and hangar method and its food-splattering results would pack even more of a punch.

However, this volume of poetry is not meant to be analyzed too closely, but merely taken for what it is . . . a way to decompress, laugh with another mother who has experienced the same thing, and look back on raising a child with some whimsy.  Haiku Mama by Kari Anne Roy is just the break a new mother needs.

About the Author and the book:

Quirk Books, an independent publisher, makes this volume of haiku poetry available from Kari Anne Roy, the perpetrator of Haiku of the Day blog.  Please check out her blog and her bio.

As part of the National Poetry Month 2011 blog tour, please stop by Rhapsody in Books for today’s tour stop and review of I Wanna Be Your Shoebox.

 

 

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

 

 

This is my 10th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Publishers/Publicists, Quirk Classics, Read in 2011, review copy, reviews Tagged With: ,

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry

March 16, 2011 by

Brunonia Barry‘s (check out her writing space) The Map of True Places (out on March 22 in paperback) is set in New England — Boston and Salem with a touch of Irish charm — much like her first book The Lace Reader (my review).  Zee Finch is a psycotherapist working for the prestigious practice of Dr. Liz Mattei and with patients who have bi-polar disorder.  Her patients’ symptoms remind her of her deceased mother in many ways, but Lilly Braedon, her problems, and her suicide take center stage for Zee.

“She carefully placed the bottle into the trash compactor, then flipped the switch, waiting for the pop and the smash.  The bag was almost full, so she removed it and took it out to the deck, walking all the way back down the stairs in her bare feet, placing the compacted bottle into the bottom of the garbage bin, not with the recyclables, as she would have preferred, but with the regular trash, so that there would be no evidence of the bottle.”  (page 21-2, hardcover)

Like the puzzle of the underground tunnels in The Lace Reader and the patterns in the lace, The Map of True Places presents a series of puzzles, mazes, and other patterns to follow as Zee struggles to put the pieces of her past back together so that she can deal with them one-on-one rather than burying them deep inside.  Unlike her professional persona that helps her patients discuss their internal turmoil and family problems, Zee continues to struggle with the death of her mother and the emotional absence of her father throughout her adolescence.  The broken wine bottle is just one significant image in Barry’s book in that it signifies how Zee deals with her problems and hides from confrontation as much as possible.

Barry’s prose is complex, full of imagery, and engaging.  She easily weaves her puzzles, leading readers through the narrative without revealing too much before it needs to be.  Zee is a broken character who tries to put a good face on her life even when she is not as sure about her choices as she should be.  Zee not only needs to deal with her past, but also determine if her present and future will include her fiance Michael, one of the state’s most eligible bachelors.  Overall, The Map of True Places is an engaging novel that navigates the past, present, and future simultaneously as Zee examines herself and her choices searching for her true path.

This is my 6th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2011, review copy, reviews, Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2011 Tagged With: ,

The Rorschach Factory by Valerie Fox

March 8, 2011 by

The Rorschach Factory by Valerie Fox is a collection of poems that are left up to the interpretation of the reader in many cases.  Much like the inkblot test, these poems provide snippets of color, image, and story to provide an outline for readers, and those readers are then tasked with filling in the blanks and interpreting what is there.  Some poems seem to carry a personal history in many of the lines, while others are whimsical in their interpretations of pop culture and real-life relationships.

From “This Is Not My Cousin” (page 9):
This is not the sensational human
condition.  God is not in the picture
just me and trees and my cousin’s shadow.
We like how I am standing on the high place
a smiling paperdoll propped up on the edge
about to step back, waving to Columbus.

From “You’re No Axl Rose” (page 43):

You’re no Axl Rose but your sentences are
as complex as your hair, in an unintended,
wiry, I will live forever way, the way Axl
swings his hips and smokes just enough
to achieve his pristine scratchy scream.
You’re no James Dean but when you can afford
to drive a Porsche I’ll let you drive me
to the Acme to buy aspirin or milk.

Fox’s writing style leaves room for the imagination of the reader so that each new audience can take their own journey.  In other poems, there is a clear tone that shines through the lines, like in “The Temple” (page 37) where the narrator talks about her time with a poet who thought of himself as upper class, but of her as much lower.  The poet was slumming it with the narrator, but you can tell from turns of certain phrases that this view was not accurate:  “He’s my essay.//Soon enough/he ran out of money./I’m a poet, and I’d squirreled a bit of currency away./This became my motto-//’I got mine.'” (page 38)

Broken down into four sections — Out of Time, The One Who Leaves You, Accomplice, and Unrest — the narrator has set up a collection of poems that would appear to be drenched in despair and regret, but readers will be surprised by the not only whimsical poems but also the humor with which she highlights pop culture and elements of the ridiculous in intimate relationships.  Overall, The Rorschach Factory by Valerie Fox is a collection that you can read in one sitting, piecemeal, and revisit over and over, finding nuances to each poem that may not have been as prominent upon first reading.

About the Poet:

Dr. Fox’s most recent book is Bundles of Letters, Including A, V and Epsilon (Texture Press), written with Arlene Ang. Previous books of poems are The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books) and Amnesia, or, Ideas for Movies (Texture Press). Her work has appeared in many magazines, including Hanging Loose, The World, Feminist Studies, Siren, Phoebe, Watershed, sonaweb, and West Branch.

She was a founding co-editor of 6ix magazine (1990-2000), and currently edits Press 1, a journal featuring poetry, short fiction, opinion, and photography.  Very involved in collaborative writing, she and Arlene Ang have collaborated in the writing of poetry and fiction, publishing in magazines such as Admit 2, Origami Condom, Per Contra and Qarrtsiluni.  At Drexel, Dr. Fox teaches Freshman Writing, Creative Writing (poetry), and Readings in Poetry. She’s particularly interested in experimental poetics and online teaching/e-learning.

About the Indie/Small Press:

Straw Gate Books published Valerie Fox’s The Rorschach Factory and was founded in 2005 by poet and co-founding editor of 6ix magazine (1990-2000) Phyllis Wat in Philadelphia, Pa.  Here’s a snippet of their mission:

“We are particularly interested in works by women and non-polemical writing with an underlying social content. We also feature new authors and authors whose work is underserved.”

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

 

 

This is my 9th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

 

 

Here’s a confession, I’ve had this book for a couple of years, and I believe it came from the author or her good friend Arlene Ang.  I’m just now getting around to it.  This is my 5th book for the 2011 Wish I’d Read That Challenge.

Filed Under: Events, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, Independent and Small Press Month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2011, review copy, reviews, Wish I'd Read That Challenge 2011 Tagged With: ,

The Other Life by Ellen Meister

March 3, 2011 by

We’re taking a break today from the Celebrate! Indie & Small Press Month for a pre-scheduled TLC Book Tour into another world.

The Other Life by Ellen Meister chronicles the life of Quinn Braverman, a young married woman with one son and a caring husband, Lewis.  The suicide of her artist mother haunts her on a daily basis, but to cope, she enters into another life through a portal in her basement.  Her life with Eugene is without children and marriage, but is less mundane and best of all her mother is still alive.  Meister mixes a modern story line about family, suicide, and relationships with science fiction elements as Quinn travels through portals into parallel lives.

“But the important part of the secret — the part that terrified and thrilled her — was that she knew it was possible to cross from one life to the other.  There were portals.”  (page 5 of ARC)

Quinn’s life with Lewis is turned upside down when they learn that their unborn daughter’s life will not be as perfect as they imagined.  Although she’s always known that she could jump between her parallel lives, she has promised herself that she would not do it.  A promise that she cannot keep, and a promise that is quickly broken time and time again as she struggles to deal with her high-risk pregnancy, her inability to seek comfort from her mother, and the overwhelming desire to simply escape.

“She closed her hand into a fist and continued pushing.  The fissure became a hole, and the harder she pressed, the deeper it became, until her hand had disappeared up to her elbow.  She stuck her other hand inside and pressed her palms together.  Quinn closed her eyes and sensed Eugene’s energy, feeling as if the scent of his aftershave were lingering around her nostrils.”  (page 47 of ARC)

Readers who have read Linda Gray Sexton’s memoir about the legacy of suicide Half in Love (click for my review), will notice Quinn has a similar love-hate relationship with her mother and the legacy of suicide.  Her mother, Nan, has a similar artistic and impassioned charisma that Linda’s mother, Anne Sexton, had.  It is this combination that draws in the reader and the main character into Nan’s world of painting and deconstruction of her family in visual form.  Passages pepper the book with insight into Nan’s approach to her family and her work as an artist, but this pull doesn’t stop there.

“Her mother’s pull was just too strong for Quinn to float away and feel as if she were experiencing the shopping trip as an outsider looking in.”  (page 95 of ARC)

Drawn to her mother and a life where her presence is reassuring, Quinn struggles even more with her present life, and her brother’s inherited bipolar disorder only exacerbate her need for stability, which she believes can only be found in another life.  Meister does an excellent job of creating a sympathetic, mess of a character in Quinn and successfully weaves in the use of portals to demonstrate her anxiety.

Quinn is a mother wrought with anxiety, loneliness, and a forceful need to care for everyone in her life.  She’s constantly running from one crisis to another with her sword blazing, and while readers can feel for her and want her world to be right again, she can be frustrating as she jumps through portals to escape the hard decisions in her other life.  Overall, Meister’s writing is engaging, suspenseful, and easy to follow even as readers travel with Quinn between her two lives.  Readers hope that she will find the peace she is looking for and the love that she deserves, while at the same time confronting her past demons and moving into the future as a more confident woman and mother.  The Other Life by Ellen Meister would make an excellent book club selection.

About the Author:

Ellen Meister lives on Long Island with her husband and three children.

You can find out more about Ellen at her website, and you can also follow her blog and on Twitter.

 

 

Please check out the rest of the stops on the tour.

 

 

 

This is my 8th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2011, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,