by Adam Levon Brown ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2019
A stirring exploration of trauma and healing.
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Brown (Death Is Not Our Holy Word, 2017, etc.) offers optimistic poetry about the realities of psychological illness.
“I can’t write a villanelle,” says the speaker in this collection’s final piece, “To the Reader.” However, the challenge of mastering the rhyme scheme of a Petrarchan sonnet is nothing compared to the pain of trauma, the horror of abuse, or the vertigo of the psychiatric unit, as evidenced in Brown’s devastating new book of verse on psychological illness. The collection’s greatest strength is the author’s wrenching honesty; it takes courage to reveal the realities of psychic pain, and these poems are braver than most in that regard. Such pain can fracture lives, and accordingly, Brown’s verse is often broken into quick, shattering bursts, as in “To My Trauma”: “5 years of mountains / strip-mined / from / childhood / sizzling with ugly / stares.” Here, the frequent line breaks stymie the regular flow of the words—a trick that he pulls off elsewhere with long spaces or slashes within lines. The effect, each time, is jarring but captivating. Yet the volume isn’t all about anguish; Brown also offers glimpses of recovery and rehabilitation, and nowhere so elegantly as in “The Trauma of Spiritual Flesh.” This long poem is built around two refrains: “I spoke to my trauma” and “I went where the hope lived,” with the first eventually giving way to the second. The poem articulates one of the collection’s main aspirations—that talking about our pain might lead to restoration. It concludes: “I spoke to my trauma; / I went where the hope lived; / and now all I can say is: / Your best day is still to come / give yourself a chance to live it.” It’s a message that many readers may find helpful.
A stirring exploration of trauma and healing.Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-950433-03-2
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Poetic Justice Books & Arts
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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