An emotionally vulnerable book of poems that may be too self-referential for some.
A sincere poetry collection about faith, survival, and renewal.
In this confessional book of poems, photographer and writer Jackson explores spirituality, resilience, and self-acceptance. The first poem, “Fear,” reveals that the speaker is afraid to dream and live, uncertain how his future will unfold. “Will I live a peaceful existence? / Or will I excuse self-ignorance?” he asks in “Breathe.” Despite “many tears” and “a burdened mind,” he finds solace in Jesus in “Love.” Christianity continues to provide relief in “Saved,” in which the speaker proclaims, “At last, I can breathe, my heart beating / Jesus, help me to never feel alone again.” Poems such as “Skin” and “Playground” address racial identity and childhood bullying, while “Untold” and “I am” question self-worth. “Who I Am” contrasts negative self-perception and an aspirational self. Alongside this spiritual journey, the speaker longs for a romantic partner. “Wait,” “Find Me,” and “Love?” detail the speaker’s search for a special someone he can lean on. “Hello Father” is a direct address to the speaker’s absent parent, informing him of milestones he’s missed. The closing poem, “Redemption,” finds the speaker in a hopeful state after recognizing that his thoughts were untrue and that “at last, I had the courage / To tell myself / I was wrong.” The greatest strength of this collection is its brutal honesty and raw emotion, evidenced in poems like “Waiting,” in which Jackson writes, “I have a rose / With no one to give it to / A heart…with no one to cherish it / A ring…with no one to wear it / Love…with no one to share it with.” Those who have experienced despair will relate to Jackson’s depiction in lines like “Never good enough / Not more than a bluff / Echoes of victory / Become a mystery / As dreams fade away.” Jackson also fruitfully experiments with point of view, as in several poems written from Jesus’ perspective. However, some readers may struggle to stick with this deeply personal and painful self-discovery over hundreds of entries.
An emotionally vulnerable book of poems that may be too self-referential for some.Pub Date: July 21, 2024
ISBN: 9798333693846
Page Count: 331
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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