by Michael Torok ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2015
Accomplished and uncommonly moving poems.
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A debut poetry collection harnesses the power of the vernacular.
Mark Rylance, former artistic director of the Globe Theatre in London, is fond of reminding people that the first line of Hamlet is “Who’s there?” Rylance’s point is that Shakespeare, for all his putative difficulty, likes to hang his verse on language folks might use every day. It’s hard not to think of Rylance’s insight when reading the poetry of Torok, an author whose verse thrives on its close proximity to common speech. Readers see a prime example of this in “The Selling of Joseph.” The poem is about a man who murders his wife, and the centerpiece of the final stanza is a line from the killer himself: “When I met him, I found myself, / a stenographer. I wanna say I’m sorry / for shooting my wife. I shouldn’ta / done that. I stopped writing, / his candor the clearest sign.” Torok is a writer of skill and subtlety, but in this moment, he defers to the simple “candor”—and the brutal honesty—of everyday language. Of course, the husband’s utterance is also an admission of guilt, and readers hear echoes of the confessional mode in other pieces in the book, much of which touches on the pain of lost love. In “Refocusing,” the author laments the breakup of a marriage years after its death: “I sort pictures / in my mind, a beautiful / girl I once knew. She is far away / from me now, though we are still / close. I would like to be holding her / hand. I would like to go home quiet / in the car. I would like to have her / tell me things will be alright. / She cannot.” In these touching, deeply personal lines, Torok gives readers a speaker baring his soul. Yet formal concerns are never far from the poet’s mind, and his canny placement of line breaks lets the disruptions in the piece mirror the disturbances in the relationship.
Accomplished and uncommonly moving poems.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9963030-0-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Smokeloop Press
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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