A thought-stirring, rich collection from an erudite writer.
A collection of poems based in the natural world.
Throughout the five parts of this 2021 Gival Press Poetry Award–winning collection, Monaghan juxtaposes humanity and nature. “Sustain” contemplates “elaborate / grief–– / quiet / as dunes,” while “For Paper Money” recalls “Leaves on the tree / large like / features of a child.” The poet focuses on delicate details, from “how light slit / bedroom / floorboards / over decades” in a home to the “dry-spine / grasses wet for only a week / of summer.” In the intriguing “Chassis Excavation,” a “spit of land” has been “castrated and recast / in some acidic form.” Monaghan ponders the value of stasis in “Touch Screen,” while race and dystopia are the foci of “Collage.” The havoc modern humans wreak on nature is addressed in the titular poem, which takes place at Ghana’s Agbogbloshie center for recycling e-waste, and “The Kola Superdeep Borehole Waits,” which hearkens back to a Soviet drilling project. “The Leveling” drops readers in the midst of a “frenzied autumn.” The poet tries on the voices of composers Robert Schumann, György Kurtág, Claude Debussy, and Béla Bartók in “Love Song Variations.” Monaghan is a skilled poet. She is adept at metaphor, dazzling with imagery like, “A desire is a root / finding its way / in the water.” Several esoteric poems intimidate with their titles alone, like “Ceremonial Dialogue With the Feng Tripod.” Her language is melodious: “You are like the seaplane / descending,” and the poems’ subjects are enigmatic, making every poem a riddle that is open to interpretation. For example, is “At the Hotel” a story about a drug overdose? Lines like “Where substances form / at the mouth. / Swept for contaminants / there is no cause” make it unclear. But the writing is so breathtaking that readers relish the mystery.
A thought-stirring, rich collection from an erudite writer.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-940724-40-9
Page Count: 111
Publisher: Gival Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Find your own man’s best friend and curl up for some love, laughs, and insight.
An illustrated phrase book for dog lovers of all ages.
For dog lovers not fluent in canine languages or able to read minds, this gift book pairs color photos of dogs of many breeds, shapes, sizes, and ages with captions that explain each dog’s thoughts. Every aspect of a dog’s life is covered: eating (and stealing) food, playing with human and animal friends, vet visits, grooming, and even getting into trouble. Some messages are slightly ominous but delivered in good fun. In one photo, just one eye of a dog peers through fence slats. The caption? “Here, kitty kitty.” Other photos capture more positive dog-cat relationships, and a small, wide-eyed terrier even worries about the biggest cat it has ever seen. Some translations show dogs at their goofiest. The photo of a gangly pup captured awkwardly in midair with front paws flailing for a ball is captioned “I will catch this wingless bee if it is the last thing I do!” Other photo-text pairs share words of wisdom. A large brindle dog with a woebegone expression explains, “No, I don’t think it would be fun for your two-year-old to ride me like a horse, actually.” A distressed shepherd with ears pinned down and back asks, “I beg of you, please, please put those fireworks back in the garage cabinet.” Some of the best captions clearly demonstrate a dog’s superior intellect. “I finally trained her to give me a treat if I shake her hand.” Companion title The Secret Thoughts of Cats publishes simultaneously. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Find your own man’s best friend and curl up for some love, laughs, and insight. (Picture book. 5-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-951412-22-7
Page Count: 120
Publisher: The Collective Book Studio
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
A varied collection of earnest verses and impressive illustrations about therapy.
Odland explores eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy from multiple angles in this collection of poems and images.
EMDR is a form of psychotherapy in which a person accesses traumatic memories while focusing on deliberate physical stimulation, such as moving one’s eyes from side to side, which can have the effect of alleviating the stress of such recollections. In this work, Odland shares poems and illustrations from his perspective as an EMDR counselor, or, as he puts it in “Emotional Surgery,” “a well-intentioned therapist / With no scalpel in hand / No surgeon’s mask.” Much of the poetry deals with the particular tension of being both someone who uses EMDR in treatment and someone who has undergone the same therapy. Odland captures the anxiety of wondering whether he’s doing a good job for the people he treats in “What if I Fail”: “What if I rush / To heal their pain / And send them out raw / Through the pouring rain?” In “Have You,” he wonders if his training gets in the way of his own therapy. Other works are written from the perspectives of patients who would benefit from EMDR but are afraid to pursue it or don’t know how to begin. Some use figurative language to describe the process, such as the trio of poems that compare EMDR to playing jazz. Each work is accompanied by the author’s images, mostly drawings or prints in a black-and-white woodblock style. Disembodied eyes and faces are common motifs, but there are also imaginative images of women whose heads are transforming into trees, angels keeping watch over sleeping infants, and anthropomorphized coffee beans wearing boxing gloves.
Odland has a knack for effective similes, as in this description of an EMDR patient’s eye movements from “Miracle”: “Her eyes pace like a worried mother / Wearing out linoleum tile.” At other points, he compares trauma to a hibernating bear or canisters of toxic waste leaking into the ground. Sometimes his perspective as a therapist feels more dominant, as in “EMDR Robot,” which borrows the language of television commercials to pitch a fictitious automaton. There are moments, as in “He Doesn’t Know That I Know,” when the quality of the poetry falters, particularly when it resorts to rhymes: “I’ll try to explain the benefits of EMDR / With my best attempts at articulation / And reframe therapy as courage and strength / To stoke the embers of his dormant motivation.” The images are all high-quality, though, with the gentle imperfections of handmade work. The most effective illustrations capture the same tensions as the poetry, such as the one of a Google homepage in which the letters in the phrase “EMDR therapist” slip slowly out of the search bar. Other images, though well executed, are more opaque in their meaning, such as one that appears to show a paternal Joe Biden comforting a childlike Donald Trump. Still, those with EMDR experience are likely to see a bit of themselves in these pages.
A varied collection of earnest verses and impressive illustrations about therapy.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8797772392
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Bilateral Innovations
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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