Howe's poetry is fabricated from questions rather than certainties and arises, like the revelations of more conventional...
Howe is the author of more than 20 books, encompassing both fiction and poetry, most of which have been published by small presses (the most recent in 1997). This marks her first collection of
earlier and more recent poems published by a university press. She is Professor of Writing and Literature at the University of California at San Diego. This volume traces the odyssey of Howe's evolution as a poet over the past two decades, from Boston (the setting of some of her earliest poems) to Ireland (her ancestral and spiritual homeland) to California (her current home). Considered one of the leading `experimental` poets in the US, Howe is noted for her spare, almost austere style, yet there is much tenderness and even joy in life expressed in these verses. At times she proves herself capable of Zen-like detachment, as in her oft-quoted stanza, `Zero built a nest in my navel.` But she occasionally loses that composure, as in her lament that, `Loss is the fulfillment of the Law,` or when she asks, `Why be obedient to a world that will end?` Her convictions may appear tentative, but only because her reality remains nascent, always in the process of becoming. She strives to get to the source of meaning, to `concentrate on the consciousness the sea comes out of.` She is not afraid to stare into the gaping maw of the horror vacui, but, unlike a good many of her contemporaries, she does not accept the over-the-counter existential palliatives.
Howe's poetry is fabricated from questions rather than certainties and arises, like the revelations of more conventional mystics, from contemplation in solitude.Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-520-22262-8
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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