Brilliantly comic, pleasingly discursive, admirably dexterous, this narrative poem is a tour de force.
As told in rhyming couplets, when a sneaky dog steals a scrupulous dog’s hole, things fall apart, sparking philosophical reflections.
At the Burbles’ place, house 42, live “Kirby the Sneak and Arlo the True,” plus Kismet the Cat. Arlo is a clay-colored guard dog who keeps watch over the yard, which includes the hole he dug as a puppy. Kirby is a black-and-white collie “of a thousand disguises, unbeaten at Clue, // Dogma Cum Laude from Trickery U,” so he devises an elaborate plan to steal Arlo’s hole. He fills it in, runs off with the hole in his mouth, and puts it in neighbor Mr. McCornchowder’s yard, making a quick escape. Somehow this alters the balance of nature: “The earthyworms’ dirts had turned hard as a rock, / And the dragonfly’s motor was starting to knock,” for example. Kismet the Wise, however, orders Kirby to “get the hole back.” With some difficulty and a little damage to himself, Kirby does so, and all returns to normal. Kirby sits down to think it over, with wide-ranging philosophical musing on the nature of holes, points, circles, physics, time, webs, and more. Both dogs find themselves reflecting on family history and tradition: Arlo’s of fidelity and Kirby’s of sneakiness and sheepherding, counterpointed with the backdrop of a perfect summer afternoon. The end of Kirby’s exploring is his grand theory, “The Downhole Effect.” Williamson (A Most Marvelous Piece of Luck, 2008, etc.), a much-published poet, seems unable to write a dull line. His lists are a special delight, as when Kirby assembles his hole-recovery gear: “One snow axe, two snorkels, a hollow point spear // A vanishing hand cream called U D’sappear,” and so on. His images are fresh and striking: an American dog with “the patience of mesas”; “the Spirograph seeds in the sunflower’s swirl.” This might resemble a children’s book, with its rhyming couplets, animal heroes, and amusing line drawings, but adults will likely better appreciate its zinging verbal wit, clever rhymes, and learned allusions.
Brilliantly comic, pleasingly discursive, admirably dexterous, this narrative poem is a tour de force.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-904130-83-3
Page Count: 120
Publisher: The Waywiser Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Poems that squeeze and pulse with originality, like the powerful hearts they describe.
This new poetry collection from Versella (Five Foot Voice, 2011, etc.), the second in a series, chronicles the passions of romantic love.
The poet’s penchant for sensual imagery, including synesthesia of taste and touch, continues in this latest book. Love is still an addiction in these poems, but the speaker’s self-awareness seems greater. The two-page prose poem “Wants: Part Two” that opens “Self Reflection,” the first section, acknowledges that “Life has no road map” but warns that caution may be restrictive: “So don’t cower in the back alleys of your fear and let anything or anybody hold you back.” An echo of the previous book’s title shows up in an early poem: “She felt just a bit deformed / Like somehow this body of hers / Was too small for the big soul / Trapped inside.” This is a poet who demands to be heard, and many of the poems are informed by a preoccupation with gaining control; self-expression is the priority: “And my voice would ring out louder and stronger / Than any voice could ever preach.” Echoes of the Beat poets also appear fleetingly: “Baby,” a speaker says in a moment of anguish, “the stars are dying.” Later, the speaker says, “Howl to the night / They will never forget this sight.” The howls in this book also reach back for inspiration in Walt Whitman’s barbaric yawp, though anxiety flavors the result: “I open my cavernous hole of a mouth / But nothing good enough will ever come out.” Something very good does come out, however, in the imagery: comets plummet to “scalded bits” on beaches, bullets ricochet off a chest as love speeds up. For all the book’s bravado, it ends on a light touch; playing off Whitman’s line from Leaves of Grass (“I stop somewhere waiting for you”), the speaker takes her last stand, not stopped, not waiting: “High up on a mountain somewhere in the Big Sur country / One fast move or I’m gone....”
Poems that squeeze and pulse with originality, like the powerful hearts they describe.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4772-8346-2
Page Count: 150
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A modern, philosophical spin on classic Persian poetry.
An Iranian poet gives English-speaking readers the gift of Persian verse.
If Persian verse is a great edifice, the two pillars carrying its heavy weight are Rumi and Omar Khayyam. These giants developed—and, some would say, perfected—many of the standard forms of the genre, including masnavi, gazal, dobeiti, and robaii. In this book, debut author Irannezhad follows in Rumi’s and Khayyam’s footsteps, producing contemporary poetry in these sturdiest of structures. The masnavi and gazal forms are comprised of rhyming couplets; thus, Irannezhad gives us “Honesty”: “Honesty in life is a pure light, / Anyone who chooses it will be bright. / Anyone who lives without honesty, / During life will be unhappy.” By contrast, dobeiti and robaii are made up of quatrains, as in the following lines from a longer section called “The House of Wine”: “From birth to death are many steps / Every step we take brings us closer to our graves. / Behind your steps, sown a flower, / then paradise will appear at your steps.” The theme that Irannezhad weaves through all these classic structures is a life philosophy that he calls the “Rule of Existence.” According to Irannezhad, the Rule brings happiness and hope, and his poetry brings the Rule. Among its many benefits, he says, the Rule has the power to fulfill and liberate: “Shazde, in life like a nightingale be, / Fly, be free and become one of me!” Perhaps the only real weakness in this collection is the fact that the philosophy sometimes seems to overwhelm the poetry itself. In between verses, Irannezhad occasionally offers short prose passages that elucidate thorny parts of the Rule: “Two eternal instincts: one positive and the other negative; the education as right or wrong that we own from the beginning; the amount of understanding and intelligence to self-analyze, brings richness.” At best, this seems like New Age–y abstraction; at worst, it’s totally obscure. Either way, readers will be happy to get back to the poetry.
A modern, philosophical spin on classic Persian poetry.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-9-52-936188-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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