by Kris Godspeed Amos ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
With this invigorating torrent of words, the author should leave readers energized and inspired.
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Amos (The Embryo of My Manhood: First Edition, 2014) offers a new collection of poetry, influenced by rap.
The line between rap and poetry has always been unclear, and lyrical masterpieces recently produced by Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, and Eminem have only blurred it further. In this volume of poetry, Amos plays quite productively in the space between these two art forms. In “Genocide,” he writes, “My style of teaching is similar to Tupac and other great lyricists.” But perhaps a more obvious influence is a fellow Detroiter: “My favorite rapper was Eminem,” the author adds. Eminem is relentless with his rhymes; in older songs like “Stan” and newer pieces like “Survival,” the rapper doesn’t let artificial schemes determine the number of his rhymes. He will stop when he’s good and ready. Amos is similarly (and admirably) persistent. Readers see his doggedness in poems like “Flatline”: “I can’t save you. / I wasn’t given the utensils to open society’s wound and surgically remove its / stereotypical labels. / I can, however, persuade you / To loan me your ears as I defer the repayment of the loan, and the interest / alone can make you ethically stable. / These words will aide [sic] you, if you’re able.” There’s a brilliance to this long linkage that moves from “save you” to “persuade you” to “aid you”—and then assonantly shifts to “stable” and “able.” There’s no similar thematic throughline in this book as a whole, as the author himself admits: “bear with me as I do a little sorting.” But whatever the collection lacks in polish, it makes up for in drive and thrill. Amos takes on desultory topics, from his dad’s absence in “No Fatherly Image” to sex in “The Big Bang Theory” to race and racism in “Black Privilege.” And he ends his elegant, powerful volume with arguably his best poem, “Imperfect.” That piece concludes, “And me? / I have a great family, a full stomach, an education, and an abundance of / support, / And apparently // I have the nerve to be complaining.” Amos can complain, but readers likely won’t. This is fine stuff.
With this invigorating torrent of words, the author should leave readers energized and inspired.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 68
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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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
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by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
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
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