These piercing poems about firearms cut to the core.
A writer brings poems to a gunfight and gets off more than a few clean shots.
It is a small miracle—and a testament to the author’s versatility—that Sizemore (American Love Poem, 2017, etc.) can write such a wide variety of good poems about firearms. But don’t let the title of his new collection fool you: This is not a celebration of America’s gun culture. It is a lament. The book is dedicated to “all the lives lost to gun violence in the United States, and to all the survivors,” so unsurprisingly, many of the poems read like dirges. Take “Prayer to the Cosmos,” a post-Parkland piece that tries to capture how that tragedy transforms readers: “School buses become potential hearses, / an ambulance but a carrier of bodies / from one panic attack to the next, / a diploma more like a participation trophy / in the obstacle course of a shooting gallery, / as we wring our hands and offer the wind / from our mouths as succor for blue light.” Of course, readers are changed by such bloodshed, whether it causes them to long for a peaceful future or hope to see the gun culture grow. To its credit, this collection imagines both possibilities. To the first, Sizemore writes “Needs of a Gun Enthusiast,” a lyrical, six-stanza poem whose every block begins with the same line: “I don’t need a gun.” In it, the poet gives readers an evocative, streamlined sketch of a life lived fully without firearms. But in the opposite vein, the title poem imagines a world in which guns grow “on trees”: “Is this the utopia we deserve, / land of breath by Russian roulette, / land of nitroglycerin smoke, / black residue left on the fingers / of the firing trigger fist, / land of forests where the wind / through the limbs / sounds like a chorus / of haunted pitch pipe barrels / whistling in the key of apathy?” The message here is clear: a land in which weapons are ubiquitous is no utopia. But in sketching such a possibility with sublimity and grace, Sizemore catches some of the allure of his fatal subject. That this critic of gun culture can communicate—even implicitly—some of its dark appeal renders his appraisals even more effective.
These piercing poems about firearms cut to the core.Pub Date: May 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71868-483-6
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Crow Hollow Books
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some standouts but limited overall by the incessant rhyming and some clichéd sentiments.
Bajwa’s debut poetry collection explores spirituality, relationships, and current events.
Bajwa has been writing poetry assiduously for four years after an approximate 25-year hiatus following his high school efforts. Falling into nine thematic sections, these verses use end rhymes along with some half rhymes. In the opening poems, the narrator imagines himself as a silent, wandering observer: “I wanted to be like a river. To just gently flow.” That mellow determination sets an agreeably peripatetic tone. The first section, “Personalities,” contains character studies of heroes and criminals, a dichotomy continued in section three, “Friends and Foes.” Many of the most memorable poems are in part two, “Beauty and Love.” Several are addressed to “Malaguena,” with praise for the beloved’s features echoing the playful verse of Andrew Marvell: “no eyes are so profound, Malaguena, as yours. / Like two suns shining over that beautiful nose.” Other topics include cultivating one’s inner child, drinking with compatriots, and gratitude for freedom. As the title testifies, Bajwa relies heavily on the symbolism of heavenly beings, envisioning ordinary people as fallen angels and vice versa. First-person narratives from God and an angel who left paradise for a human lover imagine the intervention of the spiritual in the everyday. Structurally, the poems generally comprise five or six rhyming couplets. Although these follow no recognizable form, in a few cases, the first stanza is repeated as the last, thus creating a pleasant rounding-off effect. However, Bajwa’s insistence on rhyme can lead to some downright odd combinations, like wharf/dwarf and cute/flute/mute. Reversing normal word order, Bajwa can sound unfortunately Yoda-like in places: “Push oneself one must.” Moreover, most of the poems are printed in an eye-taxing italic font. The conclusions in the section “Life and the Universe” (“Life’s short. So keep smiling and carry on”) may be banal, but the “Current Affairs” section appreciates the complexities of the Middle East.
Some standouts but limited overall by the incessant rhyming and some clichéd sentiments.Pub Date: May 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4834-3172-7
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A bold and exhilarating collection of erotic, stream-of-consciousness poems.
A debut volume of poetry explores the emotional highs and lows of love and all its incarnations.
For eight years as she explored Europe, Kite-Powell collected cutthroat observations about mating, dating, and relating that she expertly arranged in free-verse poetry. Using distilled language that pulses with energy, the poet envelops readers in the heat and urgency of attraction. “Ask someone to run really fast into a brick wall. / they won’t do it. / love makes you do that,” she writes in “nostalgic whiplash.” The author lusts openly and unexpectedly for virtually everyone she meets, from a man in seat 21B to a beguiling bartender: “A glass slides to you. / his smile slides to you. / you drink the smile first / and taste the drink later.” But it isn’t all fun and games; in a standout poem titled “polyamorous existence,” the author laments the hyperoptimistic profiles on dating apps. All she wants to see is “a profile where the guy says his kids bug / the crap out of him and he just wants to cuddle after ordering a pizza.” Her tone then swerves from satirical to sorrowful when she realizes “nothing tastes or feels the same anymore. / not even sex.” While she gives shoutouts to literary greats like Tolstoy, Charles Bukowski, D.H. Lawrence, and Harold Pinter, her own poetry is firmly rooted in modern times and name-checks digital touchstones like emojis and Google hangouts. There’s never a dull moment in Kite-Powell’s work, and she isn’t limited to the salacious. In the final section, titled “Truth,” she flips the idea that “New York is a state of mind” on its head, eviscerates the “stupendously dysfunctional” communion wafer, and claims “nihilism is more real than love.” Though she may be too cynical for some readers (as when she writes that sex “might just be the only miracle there is”), she is never obscene. The only time she goes too far is in describing a plant’s leaves being as “stiff as his morning erection.”
A bold and exhilarating collection of erotic, stream-of-consciousness poems.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-96157-5
Page Count: 100
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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