The ancient Hebrew idea of tikkun olan—remaking the world whole—served as inspiration to poet and editor Rosenberg as she gathered in poems for a sister collection to her Earth-Shattering Poems (not reviewed). Taking another old idea—alphabetical order—she remakes this collection using some felicitous pairings. She opens with the anonymous African-American “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and closes with Yeats’s merry fiddler of Dooney even unto the gates of eternity. Mary Oliver’s “Summer Day” ends with “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” followed by Psalm 23, “The Lord Is My Shepherd”; Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s holding a butterfly in her hand till it “stained gold” is followed by Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra.” Lines that come into our lives as natural as breath: “Jenny kissed me,” “We were very tired, we were very merry,” “I am the master of my fate” are here in their original garb. Structured as it is around images and metaphors of light, this anthology brings refreshment to the spirit. Older readers or those with perhaps a more traditional education will find a lot of old friends here, but familiarity in this case breeds freshness. Biographical sketches of each poet, along with bibliographies that also include non-print sources, are both engaging and useful. (Poetry. 12 +)
Pub Date: April 15, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-6223-8
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
A vibrant read about the connections between fashion, culture, and social justice.
A celebration of clothing, cultural pride, and fashion activists.
Have you ever wondered why we don’t usually see high heels in men’s sizes? Do you remember when darker shades of makeup finally became easier to find? Are you curious about Muslim fashionistas? This book is for anyone who wants to explore the ways in which clothes, hairstyles, makeup, hats, and other sartorial decisions communicate who we are to the world. A person’s style can be powerful, as it enables the wearer to make a statement, giving them the opportunity to express cultural confidence, body positivity, and self-acceptance. Allaire (Ojibwe), a Vogue fashion and style writer from the Nipissing First Nation Reserve in Ontario, celebrates the way diversity is changing the world of fashion. Beginning with an introduction about the importance of representation, the author transports his readers to a place of pride. His writing questions norms and encourages young people to resist the status quo and not allow others to limit their creative expression. With sections dedicated to natural Black hair, gender nonconformity, cosplayers, Indigenous designers, and more, he brings fashion colorfully to life with photographs and history lessons. The book is made stronger by personal touches, for example passages about the ribbon shirt made by his mother and aunts that honored his Ojibwe culture and ancestors.
A vibrant read about the connections between fashion, culture, and social justice. (index, further reading, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77321-490-0
Page Count: 100
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Memoir as recovery: deeply thoughtful and eschewing too-tidy conclusions.
This memoir of a young White woman with Crouzon syndrome explores growing up with facial differences in an ableist, beauty-obsessed society.
Ariel and her twin sister, Zan, were born with a rare condition that affected the growth of their skull bones. Crouzon syndrome not only has medical repercussions—Zan and Ariel have seizures and problems with breathing, hearing, and vision—but a profound influence on the way the sisters look. From infancy, they were treated by physicians who were excited at the chance to work with such a rare condition and who sometimes couldn’t distinguish between aesthetic and medical motivations. As Ariel shows in her narration of the story of their childhood and adolescence, every milestone was touched not just by health difficulties and prejudice, but by the constant, ongoing surgeries the twins underwent beginning when they were 8 months old. In Ariel’s thoughtful and poignant telling, her own emerging awareness of and realizations about Western beauty standards didn’t change how she wanted to be perceived by the world; internalized fatphobia may seem almost mundane amid all this trauma, but the mistreatment resulting from “being fat and disfigured” ends up causing just as real a crisis. Though many events feel only loosely connected and the work reads almost like a series of essays, a narrative about Pablo Picasso and cubism ties together many otherwise fragmentary episodes.
Memoir as recovery: deeply thoughtful and eschewing too-tidy conclusions. (author’s note, sources, reading list) (Memoir. 12-18)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-31407-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
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