Ever faithful to the cowboy-poet ethic, Dawson never strays from the land and the cattle-rancher lifestyle that he so clearly loves.
By turns humorous, nostalgic and reflective, Dawson’s poems insist on uncomplicated, traditional values and on a taciturn sort of self-discovery, a process marked by action more than introspection. Dawson’s narrators always learn something about themselves, but they do so unselfconsciously, pitting themselves against the elements, breaking themselves down with hard work or immersing themselves unquestioningly in collective efforts. What they learn, they attempt to teach, as every poem comes with a lesson, a point Dawson explicitly makes in the hilarious “Apparently Not”—“Most stories from the farm have a moral or two. / This is no exception, when properly viewed.” Billed as rhyming free verse, the poems revert most frequently—and most enjoyably—to heavily punctuated iambs in an a-b-c-b rhyme scheme with a judicious peppering of internal rhyme thrown in for seasoning. Dawson’s quick pacing and light touch are perhaps nowhere more in evidence than in “When the Breeze Becomes a Storm,” the brief ballad of a cowboy who allows stubborn emotion to trump logic, refusing to believe the weather will turn on him until he and his mare are finally caught in a furious storm. Though he promises his frightened horse that he will trust her instincts the next time, she knows that “He’d downplay the signs, / He’d prevaricate, / Only turning to her / After it was too late. // That’s just how it was / For she’d known from the start / That like every other cowboy, / He led with his heart.” Not every poem in this collection gallops quite so easily. Dawson occasionally slows down for more somber reflection, as in “Gathering,” a heavy, nostalgic piece in which the 14- and 15-syllable lines lumber and lurch within the tight corral of an a-a-b-b rhyme scheme, losing grace and momentum. Fortunately, those moments are outnumbered by the tighter arrangements and quicker lines at which Dawson excels. Though he shares some similarities of voice with Joel Nelson, Dawson, unlike many cowboy poets, eschews colloquialisms and vernacular, giving his verse a more accessible, contemporary flavor. Dawson’s earnest, refreshing collection will appeal to anyone not afraid to have fun with poetry.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-1450249720
Page Count: 129
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
