by Elaine Williams ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 2016
Traditional, often sentimental verses that take few chances.
A debut collection of inspirational poems that touch on spirituality, family, and daily life.
Williams organizes her work into seven parts: “Walking By Faith,” “Trust And Confidence,” “Seasonal,” “Miscellaneous,” “God’s Creation,” “Children Are A Heritage,” and “A Listening Ear.” There’s a good deal of overlap among these categories; for example, a poem such as “The Son of God,” about the life of Christ, appears in “Walking By Faith,” but it could just as easily belong in “Seasonal,” which includes similar poems (“He Looked Beyond,” “He Made A Way”). Williams, an ordained evangelist, writes from a conservative Christian perspective. For example, she urges men to take up their proper roles as heads of the household: “Did you forget God made you the head / But you allowed the woman to be in charge instead / You should be ashamed and embarrassed too / Because you don’t want to accept responsibility that’s placed on you.” Most poems, though, avoid exhortation or scolding, focusing instead on love of faith and family. Williams uses various rhyme schemes in her verses and iambic-ish meter that wanders a bit when she pads out a line for the rhyme (“Your Word said, ‘We walk by faith and not by sight.’ / Lord it’s not for me to understand how You move and what You do”). Her Sunday-school–like style rarely strays beyond traditional sentiments, images, or language. For example, Williams writes of “The Holy Spirit” that it “is our guide. / To lead and teach us to abide,” and it “helps us not to go astray / Keeping us on the straight and narrow way.” None of these metaphors—Holy Spirit as guide, leader, teacher; the concept of the straight and narrow way—offers anything unique, striking, or poetic about the author’s perspective. In a few verses, though, her voice is more distinct, as in “Be Ready,” which begins energetically: “Get right with God before Jesus cracks the sky.” Also, in “The Red Tailed Hawk,” the contrast between how crows and believers respond to predators has some force.
Traditional, often sentimental verses that take few chances.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5246-3875-7
Page Count: 124
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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