Intricate, incisive writing that traces the fallout of the past and righteously rails against abuse.
Millikin’s poetry collection offers a powerful meditation on trauma and ancestral legacy.
The poems collected here evoke forgotten, in-between places; in these verses, the author’s trademark imagery of cold pine forests and dark motel rooms continues to abound. Millikin is a poet preoccupied with the often painful imprint left by family legacy that manifests itself across several generations; in “The Dark Birds,” she observes, “My father was haunted by the wars / in which his father fought….” The speaker continues, “He brought home the bad dreams of war, and I inherit them / through my father….” Abuse is another sickening inheritance, as addressed in the poem “Barbie Doll as Tutelary Spirit for the Too-Early Dead,” in which a father gives his daughter a doll to appease his guilt: “As a small child, you weren’t ready / for your father’s love. / But with the ones who lead you / to death, it is never easy, / touching the beauty of their offerings.” The poet often intertwines memory with natural imagery to render nuances of pain: “my father’s love, that ran too deep, / stung and burned by nettles on descent. / The Romans used nettles to march their soldiers through winter. / Nettles burn the skin creating painful warmth.” While Millikin’s poetry is intensely personal, in poems like “Trailer Parks” it also presents a broader truth: “The abused learned to accept abuse / that’s what I know from my childhood at the outskirts.”
The author has the ability to effortlessly locate complex emotional states. The opening of “Straight Line” advises, “To manage grief, cut your hair each evening.” The poet later goes on to declare that “All those years, I grew my hair longer, / preparing for what I’d have to face” (readers who have spent their lives braced for the worst will relate immediately to Millikin’s shrewd observations). Still, her writing can prove discomforting. There is a deep, artful sorrow in the manner in which the poet captures the passing of time in poems such as “Ocean Closets,” which suggests, “On a day of heavy weather, stay in the house, listen. / Trees stretch their branches into cries. Your child will grow up / leaving behind outgrown pairs of shoes for you to discard.” Elsewhere, the cautionary poem “Outskirts” describes a deplorably rapacious world: “If you are beautiful, they will rape you. / If you are strong, you will carry their burdens.” The poem “Outdoor Parties” observes, “If you don’t talk, no one will know / how strange you are, and they’ll like you / because you’re a pretty girl, with the right make-up. / I used to think it would work, following this advice / of my pastor uncle.” Millikin expresses horror over the idea of other women being manipulated and subjugated by men similar to her uncle; her thorough unpacking of how patriarchy operates is a call for other women to emphatically reject it. This collection demonstrates a profound understanding of suffering and resilience.
Intricate, incisive writing that traces the fallout of the past and righteously rails against abuse.Pub Date: April 27, 2022
ISBN: 9780877750802
Page Count: 127
Publisher: Unicorn Press
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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