A compilation of verse that’s popular in the best sense of the word.
Kinzie (Undamned, 2014) hopes to write poetry for the masses in this sumptuous collection.
The author opens the book by invoking former Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins. It’s an apt allusion, as part of Collins’ popularity springs from the unpretentiousness and approachability of his language. He has said that his own verse is “suburban, it’s domestic, it’s middle class, and it’s sort of unashamedly that.” Kinzie’s poems are the same, and intentionally so. She writes that she hopes that her poetry “isn’t an esoteric exercise in superiority” and believes that “poetry itself, even great poetry, can move out of the dimly lit coffee houses and return to its widely relevant origins.” She writes of life as people live it in America today—of the squabbles children have before their parents come home, of the ubiquity of reality television, of aging house cats and family members. The first part of the collection is the strongest. Among the purest poems is the very first, which uses a volcano as an image for children released from school: “A kind of fluttering / precedes all-out chaos: / an explosion of children in their bright-red uniforms, / cascading and erupting every which way.” Kinzie soars when she uses the idioms of the natural world to share common experiences, as she also does in “Laity Hawk” and “Wildfire.” As the collection progresses, however, it loses some of its deftness. A later section, “Love, and Other Wild Beasts,” features a variety of reflections on modern romance. “Ninja Square Dance,” for example, reads, in part, “If you need her, / don’t let her know. / Act macho and ‘in control’. // When you see love / in her eyes, / take a dance with Miss Thin Thighs.” If the thighs are thin here, so is the verse, and it sounds more like lyrics from a Carrie Underwood B-side. Of course, that’s the danger with writing “popular” poetry; if one isn’t careful, the common can start sounding hackneyed. Most of the time, however, Kinzie is very careful, so little of the material here is trite.
A compilation of verse that’s popular in the best sense of the word.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A collection of heartfelt but nebulous and uninvolving rhapsodies to the sublime.
A man communes with all manner of natural and supernatural phenomena in these effusive poems.
Merrell, an avowed mystic, groups these 160-odd poems, each a page or so, in sections whose headings—“Spiritual Awareness Beyond the Physical,”—hint at the “majickal” New-Age themes they explore. In them, angels are everywhere, singing and fluttering, herding the souls of volcano victims to heaven, griping about their labors, sprinkling unseen blessings and inspiration all about. There are fantasy elements, including cats that fight for justice and “a good-hearted dragon who loved children and would put / His life on the line to save them.” There are pastorals galore, some glossy (“I shall get high on the fresh air / And go for a long walk / In the morning dew”), some suffused with eco-concern (“I am like the water….But like all good things on Earth / I’m being consumed at an alarming rate”). Birds are ubiquitous, usually soaring above mountains but sometimes waddling like penguins (“They slide on the ice / And dance in the snow / When they play about / It’s quite a show”). And no matter its subject or initial mood, virtually every poem thrums with unprovoked exultation: “All alone again / Except for the company of Nature / Surrounded by peace / And Heavenly love.” The author has a haphazard but conventional approach to rhyme and meter, so his verse often has the singsong feel of pop music, from the disco-inflected “Good News” to the heavy-metal trudge of the downbeat “Walking Dead.” Merrell’s language is charged with an intense lyricism, but the effect is rather liturgical; his incessant invocations of nonspecific love and divine radiance feel more generic and monotonous than uplifting. (The inclusion of black-and-white renderings of his busy, primitivist paintings adds some visual interest to the volume.
A collection of heartfelt but nebulous and uninvolving rhapsodies to the sublime.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-1432776794
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A readable but occasionally awkward set of starter poems.
A heartfelt debut collection of poetry and photography.
In an author’s note, Herold writes that after she heard the music of contemporary Christian songwriter David M. Bailey in church, she “found solace in reading his lyrics” and found herself “thinking in rhyme.” The result is this slim volume of 21 poems with accompanying photographs. The verses reflect the author’s responses to family life, loss, and the natural world and her place in it. They sometimes contain awkward word choices (“down my sodden face endless tears did roll”), but Herold’s sincerity still comes through, as when she explains in an author’s note, “My journey to understand and know God, and to know why I believe what I believe, began with my parents deaths.” She presents poems in varying styles, often free-form with copious ellipses; “One Will Stay, One Will Go,” however, ends with a grammatically casual touch that strains for rhyme and belies the serious subject: “my mom . . . she go, / her last breath, we did not know.” (Apparently inspired by e.e. cummings, Herold often eschews capital letters for her initial lines.) The collection shows flashes of humor and keen observation, as in “I Mowed The Lawn,” in which the narrator sees doves and a bunny, steps in poop and runs out of gas. A few poems addressed to birds particularly stand out: “Don’t Move,” is directed to a bluebird whose photo the narrator wants to take; “Stay Awhile” addresses a hawk (“tell me ’bout the skies”), and in “Free,” the narrator apparently tells a bird about a memory, “something i use to be. / free.” The collection’s vibrant photographs, rich with color, seem more sophisticated than the poems, which might have been enriched by musical accompaniment.
A readable but occasionally awkward set of starter poems.Pub Date: May 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-48173-208-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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