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PLACE OF PASSAGE

Name: PLACE OF PASSAGE
Author: David Craig
ISBN: 1-855266-86-3

CONTEMPORARY CATHOLIC POETRY

edited by David Craig & Janet McCann ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2000

One senses that most of these poems are mere preaching to the choir.

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The editors of this charitably sized volume have selected a wide variety of verse and arranged them according to the liturgical calendar. The poems thus cluster around the larger ceremonies of Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, but many of the Saints’ Days are also examined (among them St. Cecilia, St. Anthony, and St. Thomas Aquinas). In the editors’ opinion, it is the Catholic poet’s “emphasis on the sacraments,” and the wealth of symbolism to be found there, that distinguishes them from other Christian poets. Works such as Denise Levertov’s “Daily Bread” or Kevin Fitzpatrick’s “Breakfast Dishes” are instructive in this sense. Many of the poets will be unfamiliar to most readers, and some (such as John Paul II, Annie Dillard, and Thomas Merton) are not primarily poets. The more well-known figures include Levertov, Les Murray, and Robert Fitzgerald. These poets do not always show to advantage in the selections here: Murray’s stentorian “Poetry and Religion” reads strangely when taken away from the embattled, idiosyncratic context of his collections, and Fitzgerald’s virtues as a translator of the classics—his dense yet lucid lines—often sound stilted in his own poetry. The other works are uneven. The editors have chosen to lead off with two poems of the Pope, poems that “provided some of the direction of the anthology.” The decision is perhaps an obvious one for believers, serving as a statement of purpose, but it is a highly questionable decision from an outsider’s perspective, since both poems deal in plodding abstractions and traditional, inwrought symbolism that make for difficult reading.

One senses that most of these poems are mere preaching to the choir.

Pub Date: June 1, 2000

ISBN: 1-855266-86-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
TIP TOP
by David Craig

- BOOK REVIEW
HEAR ME TALKING TO YOU
by David Craig

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.