Effective, cutting but sometimes disconcerting poetry.
A collection offers satiric poems that have been rejected by other publishers.
Lass was born in a German village in 1938, “a couple of months after Kristallnacht.” The poet asserts that “being formed by the 20th Century, I could not help who I was, and sarcasm was just about the only thing left to me.” This collection is divided into sections, including “Silly Poems,” “Charades on a Political Reality Show,” “Vibe of the Ishtar Gate,” and “The Left Drawer,” with poems ranging from the mischievously playful to the bitingly sarcastic. All of the selections were rejected for publication elsewhere. The opening poem, “The Apple,” plays on the word app to muse about religion and technology. Elsewhere, Lass sneers at the “coolness” of West Coast culture and its ever-evolving trends: “Roadkill from LA is superior, / Being reptilian and wise. / My rocking horse is entangled in deep / Stratosfairies of thenness, newness, itness, And ifness.” Named for the ancient Babylonian gate decorated with deities and animals, the Ishtar poems diverge into mythology, summoning, among others, Canaanite gods and West African spirits. Here, the poet melds the mythological world with the trappings of the contemporary: “Let’s avoid those seraphs, / What horrid little pests they are, / Dipping their arrows in angel dust Viagra!” Meanwhile, many of “The Left Drawer” poems scoff wearily at the absurdity of modern life: “A world glut-stuffed / With sons-of-bitches.”
Lass writes erudite poetry that is punctuated with precise, powerfully unsettling imagery: “And I will hear half your words. / My emotions are deadened / Like desiccated nerves.” Many of the untitled poems found here pose probing philosophical questions and respond with devastating answers: “Is man kind? / Is mankind God? / Is God mankind? / Mankind is God in ruins.” There is often a fine line between satire and the offensive. Lass enjoys approaching that divide. His writing can be crudely humorous, as when pointing out the brazenness of oil corporation executives: “Whether you pull out / Your testicles / While peeing, / Or leave them discreetly / In, / Is an absolutely / Sure indicator / Of your racketeer / Rank.” But readers who interpret the poet as perpetuating rather than lampooning prejudice will not enjoy his work: “I did watch the Para-Olympits. / You gotta admit, it’s a little tough to watch for too long….They don’t need me watching them, / let them do their own / hype.” In this collection, no subject is immune to satire. In another piece, the poet mimics Jamaican patois to call out corrupt evangelists: “He go to dey horehouse and he get rolld.” Such lines may well be written with ironic implications, but are difficult to stomach. On other occasions, the use of irony drives home Lass’ point emphatically, as when adopting the voice of pro-gun politicians to emphasize the absurdity of their argument: “The truth is not the truth, / Therefore it can never be true! / Death by automatic rifle occurs / Because there is a lack of such weapons.” Many of these rejected poems are worth reading, but the assemblage is marred by a few that stray too far over the line.
Effective, cutting but sometimes disconcerting poetry.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66419-545-5
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Xlibris US
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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