Even though they get a bit precious at times and sometimes lose their way, the essays always come together “to resurrect and...
Poet Journey (English/Univ. of Southern California; Vulgar Remedies, 2013, etc.) gathers 14 quirky, earthy, lyrical essays, a number of which have been previously published.
In “Modifying the Badger,” about the author’s transforming a badger into a raccoon via taxidermy, she discusses C.D. Wright’s poem “Personals” and how, “through accumulation and refraction, Wright’s slivers of personal history…expand into a larger social matrix.” So do Journey’s essays, many of which are autobiographical. Each piece is like a “sliver” of a photo album in which we observe the author’s grandparents, parents, sister, friends, and boyfriends. Sometimes it’s not pretty, like when she writes about calling a suicide hotline or when she describes herself and her best friend burning their arms with the ends of cigarettes. There are many secrets in closets, and there’s also glorious prose, beautiful images and metaphors composed by a fine poet. In “A Common Skin,” about how a rider and horse “share a common skin,” she describes her rigid calf muscles as “dried corncobs,” her heels hanging down, “hard as rubber.” Many of the titles are poetic: “Epithalamium with Skunk Pigs,” “A Flicker of Animal, a Flank” and “Prologue as Part of the Body.” Readers will learn intriguing tidbits along the way—e.g., how to stuff a starling, that “taxidermy is about life, not death,” how to be a potter, give a tattoo. We also visit interesting places, like dusty Deyrolle, part Parisian taxidermy shop, part museum of oddities, and Los Angeles’ Museum of Death, home to the preserved head of the vicious serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. These elegant essays are sometimes-bewitching meditations and musings: a “unique mixture of pathos and humor, revelation and concealment, banality and wonder.”
Even though they get a bit precious at times and sometimes lose their way, the essays always come together “to resurrect and walk.”Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61902-847-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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