A confident though uneven collection of poems.
Jansen ruminates on religion, aging, and travel in this collection of poems.
The sacred and the profane sit side by side in this collection, which is divided neatly into five sections according to style and subject. The first dramatizes moments from the final hours of the life of Jesus Christ in verse; the second contains a series of prose poems featuring an old man who offers spirited parables about trees, paintings viewed up close or from farther away, and getting slapped by a beautiful woman “with the strength of a small army” in the street in front of a church (“III”). The more secular-minded third section strikes upon a number of topics in verse, including hanging around with “a group of writers who never write” (“Art for Art’s Sake”)and memories of riding a subway car with a lover. The fourth section returns to prose pieces, recounting incidents from Jansen’s travels in Europe, including encounters with strange characters in Prague and Paris, visions of St. Cecilia in Rome, and, in one instance, how reading Stephen King’s horror novel It helped him realize he wanted to become a writer. A brief fifth section attempts, in verse, to synthesize what has come before as the speaker walks with a lovely woman through a moonlit memory: “She is beautiful and guarded / and her laugh sparkles like glitter. / Envy the saint / who hangs ‘round her neck” (“Brushstrokes”). The collection contains both poetry and prose, but even Jansen’s poems tend to read like prose with line breaks. The best verses come in the third section, when Jansen focuses on describing the real world (from “Brooklyn-Bound R, 1998”: a man on the subway slouches “in the orange side seat / like a weary foot soldier, some skin-pierced, / tattooed mercenary from the highlands of the Bronx”) or capturing its occasional surreality (from “The Beautiful Ear”: “I was sitting in a room full of strangers / I had known for almost a year, / everyone looking bored, or confused, / like cadavers, or the indignant images / on canceled postage stamps”). The other sections, which are more overtly religious and didactic, offer fewer surprises and less room for invention.
A confident though uneven collection of poems.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780829458886
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Loyola Press
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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