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ENTIRE DILEMMA

Name: ENTIRE DILEMMA
Author: Michael Burkard
ISBN: 1-889330-17-5

by Michael Burkard ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

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paper 1-889330-18-3 The sixth book of poems by the author of My Secret Boat (1990, etc.)—which mixed prose and poetry—continues to document the poet’s struggles with alcohol, a broken marriage, and a past he—d rather forget about. With his short-line simplicity and slight surreal touches, Burkard resists clarity when he’s not outright sentimental, much in the style of Raymond Carver, though he fancies himself more in the tradition of Roethke. Two longish poems, —Before the Dark— and —How I Shaded the Book,— rely on a twelve-step—like vocabulary to apologize to an old friend from his drunk days, and to credit a Graham Greene novel for a moment of clarity in his boozy life. Many of Burkard’s little fables and parables are deliberately enigmatic: a boy without shadows is murdered; a man in rehab makes a wallet and then has it returned from the one he gave it to; a boy falls in love with a pencil after his father dies; and the hippie aphorisms of —A Point,— where he declares that —all you need is a point.— Burkard risks sheer triviality in his playful bits: —Mel— seems little more than an excuse to ask, —Who the hell is Mel?—; and —Tom— allows him to blurt out about Toms he’s known. Despite his occasional affirmation—a prayer to his dog, a hymn to beauty and simplicity—Burkard’s strength is in his gloomy recollections: memories of an unwanted kiss, or imagining a world without him in it. Garbled syntax and overuse of the distancing —one— detract from more honest insights.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 1-889330-17-5

Page Count: 88

Publisher: Sarabande

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN

by Jacqueline Harpman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1997

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I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').

Pub Date: May 1, 1997

ISBN: 1-888363-43-6

Page Count: 224

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ORLANDA
by Jacqueline Harpman & translated by Ros Schwartz

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.