A fine, imported anthology, subtitled ``Poems About Death and Loss,'' of simple but sophisticated poems about the mystery, grief, fear, and occasional gallows humor that surround death. Duffy, a well-known British poet, closes the book with the only work of her own that she has included, ``And Then What,'' after ushering readers through the works of the familiar W.H. Auden (``Funeral Blues''), Emily Dickinson (``Because I Could Not Stop for Death''), and Dylan Thomas (``Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night''), and less familiar (to young readers) but no less worthy poets, such as James Sykes (``How Can You Write a Poem When You're Dying of AIDS?'') and Michael Longley (``Detour''). The selections express many of the attitudes people have felt about death: awe, horror, pain, irreverence. There are some that are reassuring, addressing the imperviousness toward death of children who fail to recognize their own mortality (e.g., ``Dead Dog'' by Vernon Scannell: ``I can't remember any feeling but/a moderate pity, cool, not swollen-eyed/. . . My lump of dog was ordinary as bread''). It's unfortunate that there are so few notes on poets or the poems. Rafferty's black-and-white sketches add a light touch, while also capturing the tone of many of the poems. Fans of Duffy's earlier I Wouldn't Thank You for a Valentine (1994) will be equally satisfied with this collection. (index) (Poetry. 11+)
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-4717-4
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1996
Though awkward, this adaptation still makes for a hopeful and inspiring story.
This story, an adaptation for young people of the adult memoir The Other Wes Moore (2008), explores the lives of two young African-American men who share the same name and grew up impoverished on the same inner-city streets but wound up taking completely different paths.
Author Moore grew up with a devoted mother and extended family. After receiving poor grades and falling in with a bad crowd, his family pooled their limited finances to send him to Valley Forge Military Academy, where he found positive role models and became a Corps commander and star athlete. After earning an undergraduate degree, Wes attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. When the author read about the conviction of another Wes Moore for armed robbery and killing a police officer, he wanted to find out how two youths growing up at the same time in the same place could take such divergent paths. The author learns that the other Wes never had the extensive family support, the influential mentors or the lucky breaks he enjoyed. Unfortunately, the other Wes Moore is not introduced until over two-thirds of the way through the narrative. The story of the other Wes is heavily truncated and rushed, as is the author's conclusion, in which he argues earnestly and convincingly that young people can overcome the obstacles in their lives when they make the right choices and accept the support of caring adults.
Though awkward, this adaptation still makes for a hopeful and inspiring story. (Memoir. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-74167-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
A visceral window into a survivor’s childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love.
As palliative for his beloved Abuela's worsening dementia, memoirist Ogle offers her a book of childhood recollections.
Cast in episodic rushes of free verse and paralleling events chronicled in Free Lunch (2019) and Punching Bag (2021), the poems take the author from age 4 until college in a mix of love notes to his devoted, hardworking, Mexican grandmother; gnawing memories of fights and racial and homophobic taunts at school as he gradually becomes aware of his sexuality; and bitter clashes with both his mother, described as a harsh, self-centered deadbeat with seemingly not one ounce of love to give or any other redeeming feature, and the distant White father who threw him out the instant he came out. Though overall the poems are less about the author’s grandmother than about his own angst and issues (with searing blasts of enmity reserved for his birthparents), a picture of a loving intergenerational relationship emerges, offering moments of shared times and supportive exchanges amid the raw tallies of beat downs at home, sudden moves to escape creditors, and screaming quarrels. “My memories of a wonderful woman are written in words and verses and fragments in this book,” he writes in a foreword, “unable to be unwritten. And if it is forgotten, it can always be read again.”
A visceral window into a survivor’s childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love. (Verse memoir. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-01995-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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