A captivating and visceral portrait of the California landscape by a talented cast of poets.
A sprawling poetry anthology explores California’s ecology.
A plethora of poets honors the Golden State and its unique ecosystem in this book, organized by editors Day (The Rainbow Zoo, 2016, etc.) and Nolan (Ruby Mountain, 2016, etc.) around topography. In primarily free-verse style, poets examine the beauty of the California landscape as well as the foreboding changes occurring there. The first section, “Coast and Ocean,” introduces the diversity of marine life, from whales and dolphins to sea lions and seals. Judith McCombs’ “Refugio Beach, California, 1950” and Kay Morgan’s “Before the Oil Spill” recall a more virginal era in West Coast ecology. In the “Coastal Redwoods” section, authors expound on forestry; Marcia Falk admires the trees’ “silent flesh” while their aroma awakens Cynthia Leslie-Bole “like a slap from a Zen master.” Dana Gioia leads readers into “a landscape made of obstacles” in the “Hills and Canyons” section, in which CB Follett mourns the loss of elk, salmon, and bears in “Once Here.” In “Fields and Meadows,” Kim Roberts catalogs invasive weeds while Kevin Durkin pays homage to his feathered friends. Scorpions skitter and coyotes prowl in the “Desert” section. The “Rivers, Lakes, and Lagoons” section fixates on the lack of water, as when T.m. Lawson ponders the disappearance of a Santa Monica watering hole in “droughtfall.” Water is considered a gift in the “Sierra Nevada and Cascades” section, in which Karen Greenbaum-Maya vividly recalls a “blue so pure it lit me up / as though I’d gulped a star.” The book ends with “Cities, Towns, and Roads,” a timely meditation on the disastrous effects of industrialization and climate change. The poets in this appealing collection are pure professionals. Every missive is a sensory-rich experience. Evocative images like Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s willow trees that “hung their heads / like sad old men” are abundant. The major fault of this anthology is its size; at nearly 400 pages, it is a downpour of poetry that will likely leave readers feeling more waterlogged than refreshed. The collection would have benefited from further pruning.
A captivating and visceral portrait of the California landscape by a talented cast of poets.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9768676-9-2
Page Count: 462
Publisher: Scarlet Tanager Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A refreshingly blunt chorus of older women’s voices.
Meier (Ireland, Place Out of Time, 2017, etc.) and debut editor Barry, a psychotherapist, present an anthology of essays and poetry about female sexuality after age 50.
For some women, aging doesn’t mean the end of their sex lives but rather the beginning of new adventures. Liberation from pregnancy fears, child-rearing responsibilities, and menstruation allow them to fully indulge their own pursuit of pleasure. This anthology gives such women the opportunity to speak for themselves—and they do so with aplomb. Nonfiction author Bernadette Murphy discovers the orgasmic perks of learning to ride a motorcycle post-divorce. Lisa Mae DeMasi, whose work has appeared in multiple literary journals, finds that, with reiki practice and essential oils, achieving climax no longer feels like “trudging up Mount Washington with a dead body strapped to my back.” Writer and blogger Rita Bullinger describes how a communication technique called “Imago dialogue” has increased intimacy and sexual satisfaction with her lover: “Communication coupled with oral sex, I’m convinced, is what makes sex at sixty-six the best sex of our lives.” It’s not all excitement and discovery, however; writer Lola Fontay shares the unsettling experience of witnessing a man masturbating in front of her at the end of their first date. Poet Becky Dennison Sakellariou considers the legacy of silence around women’s desire: “A woman like me is invisible, if she is not, / she should be, an anathema, a sin.” But many writers here use humor to talk about the havoc that aging can wreak: “Just when we have our act together the warranty goes out on the equipment,” says author and professional speaker Sally Franz in her hilariously prescriptive essay “Tweaking Sex After Fifty.” The authors also often address sex with tact and sensuality: “Sometimes then, long-married / bodies, after stuttering into sleep, / curve into long slumbers of silk yesses, / yesses loud enough to waken dreams,” writes poet Brenda Yates. Toward the end, the bad online dating stories do become a bit repetitive. But there’s a diverse array of perspectives here, each unique enough to keep readers intrigued.
A refreshingly blunt chorus of older women’s voices.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9990994-4-5
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Weeping Willow Books
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wise, kind and lively verse that truly “dances to a tune that’s / gloriously redeeming / of anger, hate, and envy. / It’s an...
Engaging lyric poetry that manages to be sensual and cerebral, fun and profound.
Readers willing to dig deeper than the work of poets Derek Walcott, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Anthony Joseph will find that exciting new worlds of Caribbean poetry await. Although some lesser-known Caribbean writers tend to get bogged down in the exotic fecundity of their island landscapes, others write with a grace and steadiness that highlights personal experience within the larger context of culture and environment to reveal something universal. Trinidadian novelist, painter and poet Drayton (The Crystal Bird, 2012, etc.) most decidedly falls into the latter category. Her personal poems often focus on singular moments in her past, yet her evocation of the slippage between past and present, of how we manage to exist in both times simultaneously, speaks directly to readers. The exploration of how “time…magically overlaps generations” pervades this collection. Her narrators are buffeted by nostalgia but are never fatalistic or cloying; instead, they treasure the past and the present as a single fabric of interwoven threads. One narrator, for instance, revisits a memorable beach and finds that the “scenery I knew has all but gone, / except for the sea. / Longing and waiting, I dream of the days / that never can be again. / The sea waits while I dream a dream / where I stand on the balcony of this precious day.” Drayton invests symbols with a similar complexity; the titular brown dove, for instance, is at once a symbol of maternal devotion, sexual allure, rebellion and quiet endurance, and is rife with gender and racial resonances. Occasionally, her more contemplative poems suffer from excess erudition, and she is sometimes prone to distracting alliteration, but she also delivers unmatched similes such as, “The morning stormed my day / like a drunken party crasher / with streams of gold and white ribbons / coming through the window.”
Wise, kind and lively verse that truly “dances to a tune that’s / gloriously redeeming / of anger, hate, and envy. / It’s an awesome authority / with boundless energy.”Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478160045
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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