Raw, bracing, thoroughly contemporary political verse.
A collection offers a cri de coeur from a poet who, after three years of the Donald Trump presidency, just can’t take it anymore.
As proof of his intellect, Trump recently rattled off a list of words: “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.” For the president, the list recalled a question on a cognitive test he had been talking about all summer—one that he “aced.” His answer to that question supposedly showed his sharp memory, but it also felt like a snippet of Trumpian poetry, as if e.e. cummings got strained through the brain of a Queens real estate mogul. Readers will likely think about Trump when reading the title of Williams’ new collection that references a Native American proverb but also sounds an awful lot like the president’s strange verse. The connection, it turns out, isn’t merely fortuitous, because the author’s poetry both reflects on and rages at Trump’s America. Sometimes, the link is quite direct, as in “The Poem To Trump All Others,” which captures the president’s perpetual braggadocio: “This poem will be so good / it’ll make your head spin. / You’ll be amazed at / how good this poem will be. / … / You won’t even remember other poems / because this poem will be the poem for the ages.” Elsewhere in the volume, Williams ruminates more broadly—not necessarily about Trump, but about life in the America the president is in the process of creating. So there is a piece on conservative consternation over the New York Times' 1619 Project, the paper’s reevaluation of American history in light of the pervasive influence of slavery. And there is “And Then Eminem Created Rap,” about hip-hop and cultural appropriation. One of the most effective of these wider-ranging pieces is “#metoo,” which opens: “You ask us / to unearth these hurts, / you say giving voice to the pain / will make us heal, dull the / jagged edges of / unholy theft / You misunderstand: / there is / no relief.” In the hands of a lesser writer, these ripped-from-the-headlines poems might feel convenient or undigested. Not so for Williams, who uses poetry both to channel her anger at the day’s political scene and to add urgency to her call to action.
Raw, bracing, thoroughly contemporary political verse.Pub Date: March 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61846-104-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Library Partners Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The choir is sure to enjoy this impassioned preaching on familiar progressive themes.
Essays on current political topics by a high-profile actor and activist.
Milano explains in an introduction that she began writing this uneven collection while dealing with a severe case of Covid-19 and suffering from "persistent brain fog.” In the first essay, "On Being Unapologetically Fucked Up,” the author begins by fuming over a February 2019 incident in which she compared MAGA caps worn by high school kids to KKK hoods. She then runs through a grab bag of flash-point news items (police shootings, border crimes, sexual predators in government), deploying the F-bomb with abandon and concluding, "What I know is that fucked up is as fundamental a state of the world as night and day. But I know there is better. I know that ‘less fucked up’ is a state we can live in.” The second essay, "Believe Women," discusses Milano’s seminal role in the MeToo movement; unfortunately, it is similarly conversational in tone and predictable in content. One of the few truly personal essays, "David," about the author's marriage, refutes the old saw about love meaning never having to say you're sorry, replacing it with "Love means you can suggest a national sex strike and your husband doesn't run away screaming." Milano assumes, perhaps rightly, that her audience is composed of followers and fans; perhaps these readers will know what she is talking about in the seemingly allegorical "By Any Other Name," about her bad experience with a certain rosebush. "Holy shit, giving birth sucked," begins one essay. "Words are weird, right?" begins the next. "Welp, this is going to piss some of you off. Hang in there," opens a screed about cancel culture—though she’s entirely correct that “it’s childish, divisive, conceited, and Trumpian to its core.” By the end, however, Milano's intelligence, compassion, integrity, and endurance somewhat compensate for her lack of literary polish.
The choir is sure to enjoy this impassioned preaching on familiar progressive themes.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18329-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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