A collection of love poems that never catches fire.
DeShay (Thoughts, Love & Reflection, 2012) returns with another volume of love poetry.
As implied by the title, these are poems of yearning and anticipation, written from the male perspective and concerned with the overpowering effects of love and desire. Poem after poem attempts to express the infatuation and commitment a man feels toward the woman he loves, to match words to actions and actions to emotions. A representative poem begins: “There are times when my imagination consumes / my thoughts and takes me to a very pleasant place; / then there’s where your image transports me with / just a single glance.” The verses also show the other half of the coin as well: DeShay explores at length the complex interactions between men and women, face to face and within society, including ruminations on such unexpected topics as incarceration and voting. Scattered throughout the collection are stock photographs of couples posed romantically along with a few of less optimistic subjects (a pair of hands clutching prison bars, for example). The author also includes, at the bottom of every poem, a speech bubble to invite readers to send their reactions to his work to an email address he provides. The poems are free verse in complete sentences, giving them the appealing quality of dense, miniature essays. Unfortunately, the author generally keeps his language abstract and inexact, rarely allowing readers to hold onto a specific image or physical detail. The resulting verses feel stilted and at odds with the deep emotions they try to express: “You are the focus of my love and my existence / of my direction. I no longer wish to walk alone / but with you by my side. The journey will now / be filled with the purest form of love.” When poems reiterate such familiar ideas outside of a more intimate, immediate context, readers may feel a bit bored. DeShay succeeds in establishing a thoughtful, reflective voice, but it may often fail to hold readers’ interest.
A collection of love poems that never catches fire.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: B00ZPTMRPM
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Lulu.com
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2015
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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