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
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
