THE BLOODAXE BOOK OF 20TH CENTURY POETRY

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THE BLOODAXE BOOK OF 20TH CENTURY POETRY

Name: THE BLOODAXE BOOK OF 20TH CENTURY POETRY
Author: Edna Longley
ISBN: 1-85224-514-X

edited by Edna Longley ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2001

Enlightening and entertaining, though not essential.

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Those not repelled by the pomposity of the back-cover copy (“there is no place here for the poet as entertainer,” etc.) might actually find themselves, well, entertained by this assemblage of 20th-century works by poets from the British Isles, with the occasional American or New Zealander thrown in for good measure. Longley stresses in her brisk preface the dominance of the lyric mode, in which “the common factor is concentration,” and she argues that the differences between “urban” and “rural” poetries are not as glaring as one might at first assume. Crucial to the poems of the century were the effects of industrialization, especially as manifested in urbanization and, to an even greater degree, war. Thomas Hardy dryly observes that “After two thousand years of mass / We’ve got as far as poison-gas.” The number of pages allotted to each of the 59 contributors peaks at 13 (for Auden), and brief critical/biographical notes preface all the entries, which are organized chronologically. We are reminded, for instance, that Stevie Smith was so nicknamed “because her fringe resembled that of the jockey Steve Donaghue.” T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, and W.B. Yeats are all here, and their positions are secure; of course, it is more difficult to predict the staying power of poets still writing today, although Seamus Heaney and Thom Gunn are likely candidates. Whether anthologists of 21st-century verse will include Medbh McGuckian or Tom Leonard (the latter, employing Glaswegian dialect, morphs W.C. Williams’s “This Is Just to Say” into “Jist ti Let Yi No”) is anyone’s guess.

Enlightening and entertaining, though not essential.

Pub Date: April 2, 2001

ISBN: 1-85224-514-X

Page Count: 368

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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.