by Christopher Hassett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 10, 2016
An engaging epic for fans of abstract poetry and dystopian literature of any kind.
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A post-apocalyptic poem focuses on a lost soul wandering through a wasteland.
In this ambitious poetic debut, visual artist Hassett offers an abstract narrative about a man in search of something after a worldwide cataclysm, what appears to be a nuclear war—“From the skies to the seas plunged a mammoth beast…a blazing hand fell from the sky and touched the man whose eyes lit.” The narrator, who at times seems both flesh and not, finds himself in the middle of a classic epic archetype, the descent into Hades, when he stumbles across a great cenote in the desert and, without hesitation, throws himself down. This narrator continues his wandering, now through a phantasmagoric underground, encountering various signs and wonders from a past age. Hassett’s free verse brings this nightmarish landscape to life, escorting the reader from one vision to the next: a glyph-covered hallway, a mysterious floating stone (presumably the titular Boundary Stone), a great bonfire, and other objects that lend themselves easily to symbolism. While the convoluted rhetoric makes this narrative difficult to follow at times, Hassett displays a gift for vivid imagery. His descriptions of runes or drawings stretch over pages, and it’s easy to get as lost as the narrator in his rich imagination. There are also striking passages about natural geography. The narrator roams through a desert, explores caverns, follows underground rivers. But the most rewarding part of this long poem is its emotional core, an ambiguous love story. The narrator dives into a great pit in the desert in search of some mysterious “you,” which may be a lover, some part of himself, or perhaps an abstract truth. The verses about this “you” are the most beautiful in the enchanting volume, especially those in the third and sixth sections. This “you” ultimately guides the narrator to transcendence at the poem’s conclusion: “Your splendor at the spread of dawn is streamed and unobstruct and lays out warm.” Despite some occasions of obtuse phrasing and indulgent page breaks, this book delivers a rewarding collection of elegant, haunting images.
An engaging epic for fans of abstract poetry and dystopian literature of any kind.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-937487-85-0
Page Count: 78
Publisher: CSF Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.C. Salazar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2018
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by J.C. Salazar
by Kate Lee Diehl illustrated by Kathryn Dimenichi John Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2015
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
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Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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