by Marvin Richard Montney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 14, 2010
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In this collection, visionary poet Montney opens the doorway to the soul to uncover love’s uncharted essence.
For centuries poets and philosophers have tried to explain the special relationship between lovers and people in love and to understand the intrinsic language communicated between them. The means to articulate love are often beyond the comprehension of most people, so leave it to a poet who is also a philosopher to scrape back this sacred marrow of passion and strength and make the concept remarkably palpable and present; “Ablaze with you, I burst / into transformed day” (“To an Island girl: Twenty-three for Debbie”). Through his poetic lens and questioning mind, award-winning poet and teacher Montney has attempted to bridge his love of words and his love of thought as a means to find deeper understanding. For more than 35 years, his experiences as a writer, lecturer and teacher of Asian and Indian philosophies have colored his voice to form a challenging yet enjoyable style; “Where have you been, my sweet, my man / for many a long year? / Where have you been, my Kojiyan, / these many a long year?” (“The Eurasian girl to her love”). A good writer uses his life as a camera to help influence his writing; a great writer synthesizes these experiences into touchstones to create a path of knowledge for the reader; “what’s in the unrouged smile / of a mother’s lips pressed together / speaking softly to her four-year-old-son / on the streetcar; in the wired braces / revealed of her grinning nine-year-old / daughter seated opposite” (“What love is”). Montney certainly falls into the latter category. He transports us with words to the lush shapes of Hawaii or the rugged outdoors of Oregon and takes us to new mental plateaus as well. Invoking Plato, Socrates, Ram Dass, Ikhnaton and others, he shows his depth of ability to weave all his knowledge into a variety of poetic styles and rhythms, granting wider personality than if he were merely waxing about love in prose. Not only does this collection include his noted works “Lynne” and “Song of Sophroniscus’ Son,” but several other pieces that will likely further this author's acclaim. A great read for lovers, lovers of poetry and those with an interest in philosophy.
Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-1432702267
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Outskirts
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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