An overlong compilation that focuses too heavily on rhyme schemes and not enough on substance.
A lengthy collection of rhyming poems written over a span of 40 years.
This massive book is divided into eight sections. In the first, “Sonnets’ Prisoners,” Deemer discusses such diverse topics as the resurgence of swastikas, and a lap dance. In the poem “Denn Bleiben ist Nirgends,” he contemplates the generational divide between older men like himself and younger ones at a bar. The second section, “Boy-Katt and Dawg-Grrl,” kicks off with a poem about the speaker’s need for “a kind hand’s good petting” and turns into a catalog of various sexual acts before chastising people who dislike sex. The “Quiet Times (QTz) and Countrified Nonhaiku” section explores faith through short sermons, prayers, and parables. In the next section, “Countrified Haiku,” the poet tries his hand at the titular Japanese poetry form. “SS: Sauna Songs” zeroes in on aging and its effect on romantic prospects. The author translates poems by the likes of C.D. Balmont and Francisco de Quevedo in “Other Tongues: Translations and….” Works of remembrance and meditations on death comprise the next part, and the book concludes with “ZpZm,” a section that comprises a lament on the ephemerality of people, love, peace, and nature. Deemer impressively manages to explore a wide array of topics throughout this collection, incorporating themes of politics, desire, spirituality, mortality, and the act of writing itself. However, this breadth of topics is this book’s sole strength. Often, the poet employs crude sexual descriptions, such as “its muscled ass flexed, / building up love’s fart.” Other poems feature cultural insensitivity, such as “One Indian Summer Day Without a Care” in which the speaker declares: “Everything Indian was so much neater.” The excessive rhyming quickly becomes cloying, and the poems themselves are mostly rootless, taking place in unspecified times and nebulous places with scant details. As such, this collection in unlikely to hold many readers’ attention for its length of more than 600 pages.
An overlong compilation that focuses too heavily on rhyme schemes and not enough on substance.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66-415746-0
Page Count: 614
Publisher: Xlibris Corp
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An optimistic, feel-good novel that might just soothe some post-Covid angst.
An agoraphobic Glasgow woman works to heal her family-based trauma so she can reconnect with the world and the people she loves.
As of Nov. 14, 2018, Meredith Maggs hasn’t left her house in 1,214 days. She has created a fairly healthy routine to her days—freelance writing, exercise, baking, doing jigsaw puzzles, having sessions with Diane the counselor—but she rarely interacts with anyone in person other than her best friend, Sadie, and Sadie's kids. When Tom McDermott, from a "befriending charity" called Holding Hands, shows up on her doorstep one day, her initial instinct is to ghost him to avoid future meetings; to her surprise, he becomes a consistent visitor, a jigsaw partner, an appreciative audience for her baking, and, eventually, a friend. At the same time, via an online chat room, she meets Celeste, who discloses that she has recently been sexually assaulted. Meredith offers her support online, gradually taking the step to invite Celeste into her home. Meredith knows that in order to truly open herself to these new opportunities, she must reconcile with her sister, Fiona, who was her protector and best friend growing up. However, they fell out and have barely spoken for years. When Fiona reaches out with her own crisis, Meredith is finally able to begin healing from the trauma at the root of her agoraphobia. Alexander creates a winning heroine in Meredith and likable characters in her kind friends; this type of mental illness is not frequently highlighted or discussed, and while Meredith’s experience predates the pandemic, there are, of course, echoes of sympathy for those who were isolated at home or who continue to be anxious about leaving their homes for this uncertain world.
An optimistic, feel-good novel that might just soothe some post-Covid angst.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-0994-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one...
An inordinately moving, electric exploration of two warring cultures fused in love, focused on the lives of four Chinese women—who emigrated, in their youth, at various times, to San Francisco—and their very American 30-ish daughters.
Tan probes the tension of love and often angry bewilderment as the older women watch their daughters "as from another shore," and the daughters struggle to free themselves from maddening threads of arcane obligation. More than the gap between generations, more than the dwindling of old ways, the Chinese mothers most fear that their own hopes and truths—the secret gardens of the spirit that they have cultivated in the very worst of times—will not take root. A Chinese mother's responsibility here is to "give [my daughter] my spirit." The Joy Luck Club, begun in 1939 San Francisco, was a re-creation of the Club founded by Suyuan Woo in a beleaguered Chinese city. There, in the stench of starvation and death, four women told their "good stories," tried their luck with mah-jongg, laughed, and "feasted" on scraps. Should we, thought Suyuan, "wait for death or choose our own happiness?" Now, the Chinese women in America tell their stories (but not to their daughters or to one another): in China, an unwilling bride uses her wits, learns that she is "strong. . .like the wind"; another witnesses the suicide of her mother; and there are tales of terror, humiliation and despair. One recognizes fate but survives. But what of the American daughters—in turn grieved, furious, exasperated, amused ("You can't ever tell a Chinese mother to shut up")? The daughters, in their confessional chapters, have attempted childhood rebellions—like the young chess champion; ever on maternal display, who learned that wiles of the chessboard did not apply when opposing Mother, who had warned her: "Strongest wind cannot be seen." Other daughters—in adulthood, in crises, and drifting or upscale life-styles—tilt with mothers, one of whom wonders: "How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?"
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one that matches the vigor and sensitivity of Maxine Hong Kingston (The Warrior Woman, 1976; China Men, 1980) in her tributes to the abundant heritage of Chinese-Americans.Pub Date: March 22, 1989
ISBN: 0143038095
Page Count: -
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1989
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