by D. Carver Brazwell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2015
More characterized by sentimentality than strength.
These collected verses address matters of nature, faith, time, and love.
Several themes stand out among the nearly 100 verses, mostly short, in Brazwell’s debut collection. Images from nature appear in most of the selections, often connected to the speaker’s faith or strong emotions. Raindrops and tears, or raindrops as angel tears, appear frequently: in “Across Texas,” “Angel tears are falling across Texas / Tears of joy are covering the plains.” Grateful tears find expression here as much as those of sorrow, and hope usually tempers melancholy emotions. For example, in “Summer Dies,” a willow weeps “lonely tears,” but the verse ends by affirming connections between the willow and the creatures for whom it weeps. Brazwell also draws on autumnal images, including falling leaves, to convey a blended sense of loss and beauty. The speaker describes the freedom of his boyhood, swinging on the tree “out into space / And back to earth.” Neither he nor the tree can fully defy gravity and time, but the tree’s steadfastness in old age is a lesson in unbowed strength: its golden autumn leaves are not a sign of diminishment but a royal crown. Portraits of childhood also offer memorable images, though readers will be surprised and/or put off by verses like “The Remedy Tree,” which perhaps idealizes cutting switches for beating children. At their best, Brazwell’s offerings make an impression with original metaphors, such as a tree after an ice storm: “The streetlights reflect off you / As if you were some high-priced chandelier.” The last phrase effectively conjures the speaker’s humility and sense of wonder; he doesn’t mind depicting himself as an admiring commoner in the mansion of nature, a charming stance. Less effective, however, are clichés such as “memory lane” (twice); “good old days”; “nature’s choir” (twice); and “the test of time,” as well as twee ruminations like “When I see butterflies fluttering in a meadow / I think of angels playing in the clouds of heaven.”
More characterized by sentimentality than strength.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4808-2092-0
Page Count: 108
Publisher: ArchwayPublishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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