An engaging collection full of outrage about senseless violence.
A set of poems about violence and war through the ages.
Anderson’s collection spans multiple eras, blending imagery from the Bible, the works of Dante Alighieri, and recent headlines. These poems are forthrightly about military conflict and the seemingly endless cycles of violence people inflict upon one another. After a prelude invoking the biblical figure of Cain, the writer links conflict and bloodshed to the history of the United States—from the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to more recent examples in which a “Primitive rage eating through a soul who worships idols / Forged by guns, rifles, handguns, assault weapons / Into a fear, smothering the intent found in the Bill of Rights” (“Charleston 2015: Sunday Morning, Winchester Cathedral”). Each entry unfolds like a movement of a gruesome symphony; indeed, at one point, the poet describes war as being akin to a musical performance: In “The Zagreb Ballet,” the bombing of the titular city is “an orchestra of mortars, a chorus of cannons, / and a conductor of bombardment.” There are several recurring images, creating connections and braiding the horrors of one people with others’; for example, the forced march of Palestinians to refugee camps are a “Trail of Tears so familiar / To their Cherokee brothers and sisters” (“Nakba: 2018”). Charon, the mythological ferryman of hell, “waits with heavy oar and rudder to ferry broken / Families from their homes across the Tennessee River” (“Charon at Brown’s Ferry”). Anderson passionately uses the sonnet and other poetic forms to create “a place where tyranny cannot reign / Because power can never murder Truth” (“Oath of the Horatti”). Often, these horrors are viewed through a wide lens, but the impact of Anderson’s poetry is most potent when it links the ravages of the battlefield with something banal, as when an American soldier operating a drone in Afghanistan observes that “We kill from America / With Hellfire missiles while my son safe in his room / With his X-box works the games I work at Langley” (“Predator Warrior Pose”).
An engaging collection full of outrage about senseless violence.Pub Date: June 24, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-81249-739-2
Page Count: 87
Publisher: Wick House Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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