This book’s mix of personal text and well-chosen photos will make it a treasure for the author’s family.
Davis’ slim debut collection contains a range of forms—haiku, lyrics, short stories, and memoir.
An author’s note calls this work “an array of glimpses,” and the friends, family, and pets that appear in these pages offer fragments of a full life. Photographs serve to illustrate the poems—a family dog, a family member, a landscape. The personal moments preserved in this book will ensure that it becomes a cherished family archive, but the lack of sustained attention to a particular theme or genre means that it will have less appeal for a general audience. The modest poems don’t reach for insight or prophecy, but they do treat everyday observations with care. Experimentation informs some content, as in the opening series of lettered haiku. After the “I.” poem about imagining (as well as unicorns, Dr. Seuss, and world peace), the “J.” poem, “What Next,” laughs at the folly of the aging self: “I dive in the pool / To retrieve phone and hair piece / Loose shorts fly away.” Such lighthearted play with syllable counts turns more serious in the second major entry, a personal piece of prose titled “Fatherless”: “Another Father’s Day went by yesterday and I’m feeling more fatherless than ever.” Relevant biographical information soon follows: “I am sad and feel kind of empty when I reflect how your life was cancelled by the rest of the family whenever I asked about you. Just because you left, you became a non-person.” Perhaps it takes until adulthood to mourn a “non-person,” especially one whose story has been withheld, as this missive pulses with deep sadness at the father’s long absence. Exploring imagery beyond the formal boundaries of haiku, the author indulges in sensuous fantasy in “One Last Dance”: “A single nymph revolves slowly around a spire. / A lush rainbow of silk / faithfully follows each move / of the soft, marble body.” The dissolution of images, however, makes for the best lines, as it allows a human vulnerability to emerge: “Night falls and beckons the final performance. / My fantasy of Eden dissolves, / save for a tatter of shimmering silk wrapped around my sagging shoulders.”
This book’s mix of personal text and well-chosen photos will make it a treasure for the author’s family.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5144-1561-0
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This guide to Black culture for White people is accessible but rarely easy.
A former NFL player casts his gimlet eye on American race relations.
In his first book, Acho, an analyst for Fox Sports who grew up in Dallas as the son of Nigerian immigrants, addresses White readers who have sent him questions about Black history and culture. “My childhood,” he writes, “was one big study abroad in white culture—followed by studying abroad in black culture during college and then during my years in the NFL, which I spent on teams with 80-90 percent black players, each of whom had his own experience of being a person of color in America. Now, I’m fluent in both cultures: black and white.” While the author avoids condescending to readers who already acknowledge their White privilege or understand why it’s unacceptable to use the N-word, he’s also attuned to the sensitive nature of the topic. As such, he has created “a place where questions you may have been afraid to ask get answered.” Acho has a deft touch and a historian’s knack for marshaling facts. He packs a lot into his concise narrative, from an incisive historical breakdown of American racial unrest and violence to the ways of cultural appropriation: Your friend respecting and appreciating Black arts and culture? OK. Kim Kardashian showing off her braids and attributing her sense of style to Bo Derek? Not so much. Within larger chapters, the text, which originated with the author’s online video series with the same title, is neatly organized under helpful headings: “Let’s rewind,” “Let’s get uncomfortable,” “Talk it, walk it.” Acho can be funny, but that’s not his goal—nor is he pedaling gotcha zingers or pleas for headlines. The author delivers exactly what he promises in the title, tackling difficult topics with the depth of an engaged cultural thinker and the style of an experienced wordsmith. Throughout, Acho is a friendly guide, seeking to sow understanding even if it means risking just a little discord.
This guide to Black culture for White people is accessible but rarely easy.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-80046-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sub-title of this book is "Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools." But one finds in it little about education, and less about the teaching of English. Nor is this volume a defense of the Christian faith similar to other books from the pen of C. S. Lewis. The three lectures comprising the book are rather rambling talks about life and literature and philosophy. Those who have come to expect from Lewis penetrating satire and a subtle sense of humor, used to buttress a real Christian faith, will be disappointed.
Pub Date: April 8, 1947
ISBN: 1609421477
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1947
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