Poems full of linguistic delights and keen emotion.
A powerful collection of poetry in which humor is tinged with sadness and grief is leavened with warmth.
In her third book of poetry, Heidish (Destined to Dance, 2012, etc.) experiments with punctuation, spacing, and the physical shape of texts. Most often she writes in free verse as she reflects on her life as writer, poet, and instructor. “The Hour of Blue” appears to convey the awkwardness of a new relationship with its averted eyes and shared silences, but the speaker turns out to be addressing a roster of unknown pupils before the start of a new semester. This clever rendering of the student-teacher dynamic is but one example of the author’s skill and creativity. Similarly, she’s able to evoke an entire life story in just a few words, as in “The Wizard,” which reveals the secret lurking behind the gruff exterior of a gifted repairman whose grey eyes are “paired nail-heads.” Nevertheless, themes of mortality and loss are front and center as Heidish bears witness to the passage of time (“Let me be an old rock-wall in an Irish field”) and bids farewell to various people (her first editor, her oldest friend, a beloved aunt), places (a bookstore, a tearoom, a bakery), and things (her typewriter). Two poems consider the healing effects of live music in medical settings. In “Up Near the Ceiling,” the playing of a harp in a hospice inspires this gorgeously consonant and assonant question about the spirits of the dying: “do they float on a lavender ocean, / foam-flecked and lit from far below?” At the same time, not all poems focus on doom, gloom, and fading light. Heidish addresses more quotidian concerns, such as the impatience of a doctor’s waiting room, the indignities of summer, and the nature of hats. She also writes in the voice of a neglected pet fish and wonders how bears receive her discarded writings as they rifle through the garbage. A poem about a 60th birthday celebration features “all of those tiny candles, / studding a long barge of tiramisu,” and the speaker wryly calls for legislative action limiting the number of candles permitted by law, for the safety of us all.
Poems full of linguistic delights and keen emotion.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9905262-4-7
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Dolan & Assoc.
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
