A free-form, often thought-provoking verse confessional in the tradition of Leaves of Grass.
An epic, multipart poetry cycle about the nature of life and the transience of relationships.
James breaks up this debut poetry volume into six long segments: “a few letters,” “a new place,” “a new time,” “in distance, be,” “from ocean, sea” and “her song of legacy.” In each, he presents dozens of blank verse ranging from longer, sonnetlike constructions to much shorter, almost koanlike pronouncements (“is a man now? / is a man ever? / and (far more importantly) / is a man ... at all”). He delivers them all in a direct, clean voice with a bare minimum of standard poetic diction. This is plainspoken verse, often trying to capture very simple, fleeting, common experiences of life: “(just lying there, breathing) / (just lying there, feeling).” The poems frequently evoke the incredible power of literature and art to stir the emotions (“i have read the meditation of aurelius / and the hidden words of machiavelli / i have stood before the paintings of kandinsky / and cried with da vinci’s sketches”). However, the narrator is also a realist; time and again in these poems, actual, lived life pushes aside even the most enjoyable forms of art, as in one telling scene: “sitting at the cafe and reading dumas / a scalding cup falls on a boy / and dumas / be damned to hell.” Throughout, the poetry describes the seductive power of illusions, most often reflected in the discrete moments when they are shattered: “with one toe / he breaks the surface, / and fish swim away.” All along, the narrator observes everything with a storyteller’s sharp eye—“let me tell you / a short, little story / single man / in a single city / at a single point in time”—and a sometimes-urgent need to understand: “what are the four hidden truths? / tell me—and tell me quick.” A recurring hint of deep personal loss fills the final segment, “her song of legacy,” helping to make it the most involving, satisfying section of a collection that can sometimes be rather aphoristic.
A free-form, often thought-provoking verse confessional in the tradition of Leaves of Grass.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4935-0357-5
Page Count: 424
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.
Heidish (A Misplaced Woman, 2016, etc.) presents an account of St. Francis of Assisi’s life, as told from his father’s perspective in poetic form.
St. Francis is known as a saint who believed in living the Gospel, gave sermons to birds, and tamed a wolf. Over the course of 84 poems, Heidish tells her own fictionalized version of the saint’s journey. In his youth, Francesco is an apprentice of his father, Pietro Bernardone, a fabric importer. The boy is a sensitive dreamer and nature lover who sees “natural holiness in every living thing.” As an adult, Francesco decides to pursue knighthood, but God warns him to “Go back, child / Serve the master.” He joins the Church of San Damiano, steals his father’s storeroom stock, and sells it to rebuild the church. His furious father chains him in the cellar, and the bishop orders Francesco to repay the debt. Afterward, father and son stop speaking to each other; Francesco becomes a healer of the sick and a proficient preacher. After failing to broker a peace agreement during wartime, Francesco falls into depression and resigns his church position. He retreats to the mountains and eventually dies; it’s only then that Pietro becomes a true follower of St. Francis: “You are the father now and I the son / learning still what it means to be a saint,” he says. Heidish’s decision to tell this story from Pietro’s perspective is what makes this oft-told legend seem fresh again. She uses superb similes and metaphors; for example, at different points, she writes that St. Francis had eyes like “lit wicks” and a spirit that “shone like a clean copper pot.” In another instance, she describes the Church of San Damiano as a place in which “walls crumbled / like stale dry bread.” Following the poems, the author also offers a thorough and engaging historical summary of the real life of St. Francis, which only adds further context and depth to the tale.
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9905262-1-6
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Dolan & Associates
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.
A debut volume of poetry explores love and war.
Divided into four sections, Osaki’s book covers vast emotional territories. Section 1, entitled “Walking Back the Cat,” is a reflection on youthful relationships both familial and romantic. “Dying Arts,” the second part, is an examination of war and its brutal consequences. But sections three and four, named “Tradecraft” and “Best Evidence” respectively, do not appear to group poems by theme. The collection opens with “My Father Holding Squash,” one of Osaki’s strongest poems. It introduces the poet’s preoccupation with ephemera—particularly old photographs and letters. Here he describes a photo that is “several years old” of his father in his garden. Osaki muses that an invisible caption reads: “Look at this, you poetry-writing / jackass. Not everything I raise is useless!” The squash is described as “bearable fruit,” wryly hinting that the poet son is considered somewhat less bearable in his father’s eyes. Again, in the poem “Photograph,” Osaki is at his best, sensuously describing a shot of a young woman and the fleeting nature of that moment spent with her: “I know only that I was with her / in a room years ago, and that the sun filtering / into that room faded instantly upon striking the floor.” Wistful nostalgia gives way to violence in “Dying Arts.” Poems such as “Preserve” present a battleground dystopia: “Upturned graves and craters / to swim in when it rains. / Small children shake skulls / like rattles, while older ones carve rifles / out of bone.” Meanwhile, “Silver Star” considers the act of escorting the coffin of a dead soldier home, and “Gun Song” ruminates on owning a weapon to protect against home invasion. The language is more jagged here but powerfully unsettling nonetheless. The collection boasts a range of promising poetic voices, but they do not speak to one another, a common pitfall found in debuts. “Walking Back the Cat” is outstanding in its refined attention to detail; the sections following it read as though they have been produced by two or more other poets. Nevertheless, this is thoughtful, timely writing that demands further attention.
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984198-32-7
Page Count: 66
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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