Sharp writing and keen imagery underscore poetic themes of love and loss, memory and regret.
A writer grieves the loss of his wife to an aggressive form of cancer in this collection of poetry.
In a concise introduction, Flanigan connects this noteworthy volume’s title to the first 15 poems, each of which features a candle printed above it that would be extinguished one by one during the traditional ceremony. He explains: “The structure, mood, and dramatic progression of this ancient ritual seemed to perfectly suit my mournful purpose.” The first offering, “Sonora,” is an impressive work that creatively paints a vivid desert landscape: “Roadrunners like wicked witches arrogantly prancing.” It also sets the stage for what is to follow. With the benefit of hindsight, the author realizes that this memory from the couple’s early days suggests a youthful disregard for mortality. Upon closer inspection, danger lurks beneath the surface, represented by a hawk stalking desert creatures: “Stopping every few yards and glancing sharply to the sky / From which Death swoops down and strikes low. / We did not know then what we do know now— / You are, you become, then are no more.” Most of the poems feature free verse while three longer works appear as prose poems and deftly use the second person as Flanigan directly addresses his wife. With a journallike feel, these denser texts present a timeline as readers learn the details of his wife’s battles with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. In addition to self-recrimination, the author makes the physical and emotional tolls of the disease palpable, recounting her decline, her last words, and her death. Curiously, one of these longer works, “A Trip to the Underworld,” breaks out of the prose format and ends with a traditional rhyme scheme. Similarly, the 15th poem, “Strepitus: Like a Fallen Empire,” presents a rhyming pattern and a heart-wrenching finality: “Yes, may we take solace in the certainty of our defeat, / We gave it almost all that it was due, / We were braver than we knew.” The remaining 10 pieces include visions of older relatives and a poignant moment shared by father and daughter. One of the standouts here is a moving tribute to Flanigan’s grandmother, “The Irish in America: Annie D.” Despite all of the challenges she confronted, the author’s “Nana” was the best he could have asked for in the face of uneven parenting.
Sharp writing and keen imagery underscore poetic themes of love and loss, memory and regret.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73361-032-2
Page Count: 76
Publisher: Arjuna Books
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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