A skillful but overstuffed collection of poems.
A volume offers two decades of poetry by a prolific writer.
Solonche’s poems focus on small fascinations and random objects, from a favorite corduroy jacket and writings on a bathroom wall to a found pencil and a utility pole. Nothing is too minute or insignificant for him to put into verse. Poems like “Student and Zen Master” and “I Asked the Famous Novelist” provide brief, quirky conversations between the speaker and various individuals. Nature also factors heavily in this collection; the poet portrays a family of geese in the night, frozen lakes in January, and butterflies by the river. Writing is a recurring theme as well; the speaker shares interactions with his students, struggles with writer’s block, and even apologizes to readers for his failings. Love, lust, and sex make occasional appearances, including in “Anniversary,” a poem that catalogs the titular special day, which, after many years in a relationship, turns out to be rather mundane. Another piece contemplates a couple French-kissing on a bench in Washington Square Park. Death and mortality also insert themselves in these poems; “I Want a Fireman’s Funeral” is essentially a list of must-have memorial demands. Solonche is a proficient poet. He consistently captures the magical in the mundane. In “My Daughter Says Goodnight,” he describes that rapid transition of a young child from rambunctiously active to peacefully asleep in a scene any parent will recognize: “I turn over your form / from face-down animal / to two-legged, two-armed person.” He depicts 18-wheelers that “loom up out of nowhere, then spit / their headlights and pass.” But a couple of the poems are a bit off-putting, such as “Two Old Indians,” which features a pair of Native Americans conversing about crows, and “The Feminist Poet,” which reduces the female subject to a wagging tongue and nipples “like the tips of ballpoint pens.” It’s also difficult to justify a collection this large. After 430-plus pages, some readers may wonder why certain poems, like the one in which the speaker pledges his love to the Starbucks mermaid, made the cut.
A skillful but overstuffed collection of poems.Pub Date: April 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-94-717551-8
Page Count: 438
Publisher: Serving House Books
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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