A compilation built around puns and familiar Christian platitudes, with some surprisingly dark and intimate exceptions
Watkins offers a debut collection of short poems on love, life, and the joy of Christian faith.
In a short, introductory essay, the author freely uses emojis, capitalization, and broad references to express the excitement he finds in his religion: “When Yahweh gracefully, mercifully, and lovingly gives us freedom we MUST align our minds….I think, therefore I am. :)” The first poem, “Alone,” will take readers by surprise as it shifts from the introduction’s almost-childlike tone to a somber, reflective one: “Smoke without fire / within a breezeless wind / A universe created without stars.” This serious atmosphere extends through the first of 10 short poems, creating an expectation for a dark, thoughtful collection: “Meditative contemplation / is like a cocoon / Being alive / is like an analogy.” As the collection progresses, however, Watkins moves the focus back to the strength, love, and excitement of his faith: “I am now re-breaking / and this time I’m being set / within the word of the great I AM.” This shift also represents a departure from some of the earlier poems’ more original ideas, as he begins to rely heavily on the clichés and standard imagery of Christian praise and worship, portraying God as a light in the darkness and as a rock that withstands the trials of everyday life. Watkins’ wordplay also regresses, offering winking puns that feel forced and bring little to the subject matter: “However if we truly learn our lessons / then our shoulders will have less on.” The last 20 pages offer haiku, with many serving as vehicles for advice or proverbs: “First make a mistake / Then, meditate your mistakes / Apply the lessons.” These shorter poems also suffer from wildly shifting tones, moving from deeply romantic to outright jocular far too quickly to let overarching themes or larger insights develop. The author seems to want to show his wide range by mixing the playful with the serious, but in the end, this strategy only takes him away from the mode in which he’s strongest.
A compilation built around puns and familiar Christian platitudes, with some surprisingly dark and intimate exceptionsPub Date: June 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5347-2374-0
Page Count: 78
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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