A stirring and distinctively intimate compilation of poems.
Burrell presents a deeply personal anthology of poetry.
The author explores many themes in this evocative poetry collection, including family, loss, and social issues like mass shootings and Covid-19. Burrell’s strongest pieces touch on human connection and examine how people reconcile their past with their present, as illustrated by the piece “Midlife”: “Everything’s falling fast / like four decades of dominoes lined up / as something shaped like my life.” Much of the work is moving, like “This Is Asteroid Fell Out of the Sky,” which takes the form of a news interview mash-up following the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. Burrell’s writing is vividly descriptive in its scene-setting, painting a clear and redolent picture of both the physical surroundings and the emotions contained in the verses, as in “Do Not Drive Into Smoke”: “That house had a cellar, / lightless, dingy, that smelled like pond mud, / like cigarette butts floating in a bucket / of rainwater.” Readers can feel the grief of the speaker in “Unable To Sing.” One of the standout pieces is “Exact Change Pantoum,” another example of the speaker contemplating one’s life and choices: “I followed loss through the forest and crossed fields… / …I had my head / in night clouds, and behind them years, dulled stars, / like spit wads on a blackboard! I wasted all my breath / trying not to lose it….” Burrell’s pieces are sometimes more experimental in their composition, like the aforementioned “This Is Asteroid Fell Out of the Sky” as well as “Blind Spots Hide Motorcycles Look Twice: A Matching Quiz,” in which readers are tasked with matching up opposing statements that are poignant in any configuration they choose.
A stirring and distinctively intimate compilation of poems.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781958094433
Page Count: 74
Publisher: Eastover Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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