A well-organized and impressive celebratory compilation.
An expansive collection of work from poet Codish’s career of nearly four decades.
This selection of works, edited by composer, retired professor, and debut editor Horenstein, opens with “Voyage to Gaza,” a lengthy, semiautobiographical, and wide-ranging sonnet sequence that runs the gamut from referencing Noah in the Old Testament to providing humorous, off-color plays on words: “when Haephestus bangs his forge or wife / so sparks or spasms flare and thunder quakes.” Later love poems, often directly addressed to the poet’s wife, Susann, are deeply personal but written with an eye toward more universal, endearing aspects of love: “We are grown-ups now / not adults, never that; / we play in grown-up clothes / and play gets real, but skin / stays soft.” While describing his “Pigeon Poems” in an introduction, Codish remarks that they were written at a time when “My only contact with the natural world was what I could see out the window.” And indeed, in these poems, the lowly pigeon is a constant reminder of beauty and fragility in the world; sometimes the works have a haikulike precision, and other times the works ruminate more loosely and broadly on nature. Elsewhere, of the influence of Chinese verse on his own work, Codish writes that “enlightenment occurs suddenly rather than after decades of concentration.” His own poems playfully use the concept of dragons to explore not only Chinese mythology, but also such matters as NASA’s ongoing explorations and discovery of a “dragon aurora,” effectively highlighting the playful sense of curiosity that permeates the collection as a whole. An editor’s note provides a succinct overview of Codish’s career and legacy as a major poet, noting, in particular, the poet’s serious works on the subjects of Israel and Judaism and the fact that he “never loses sight of life’s amusing absurdities.”
A well-organized and impressive celebratory compilation.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948403-28-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kasva Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry.
What happens when a midlist author steals a manuscript and publishes it as her own?
June Hayward and Athena Liu went to Yale together, moved to D.C. after graduation, and are both writers, but the similarities end there. While June has had little success since publication and is struggling to write her second novel, Athena has become a darling of the publishing industry, much to June’s frustration. When Athena suddenly dies, June, almost accidentally, walks off with her latest manuscript, a novel about the World War I Chinese Labour Corps. June edits the novel and passes it off as her own, and no one seems the wiser, but once the novel becomes a smash success, cracks begin to form. When June faces social media accusations and staggering writer’s block, she can’t shake the feeling that someone knows the truth about what she’s done. This satirical take on racism and success in the publishing industry at times veers into the realm of the unbelievable, but, on the whole, witnessing June’s constant casual racism and flimsy justifications for her actions is somehow cathartic. Yes, publishing is like this; finally someone has written it out. At times, the novel feels so much like a social media feed that it’s impossible to stop reading—what new drama is waiting to unfold. and who will win out in the end? An incredibly meta novel, with commentary on everything from trade reviews to Twitter, the ultimate message is clear from the start, which can lead to a lack of nuance. Kuang, however, does manage to leave some questions unanswered: fodder, perhaps, for a new tweetstorm.
A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780063250833
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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