A compilation that celebrates the full spectrum of married and divine love, often with sensitivity and gusto.
These collected poems approach the subject of love in a range of tones and styles.
This book is dedicated to a pair of newlyweds, and, as such, its poems could be considered to be epithalamiums. However, as debut author Bowen explains in an introductory “Proem,” she extends her definition of love beyond the human to the divine: “all love is entered in its fullness, / and nothing is omitted. // May I never forsake Him.” This collection is as eclectic as the subtitle suggests; the poems vary a good deal in tone (devotional, witty, and bawdy, by turns), as well as form. Some are in free verse, and others employ rhyme or haiku form. Bowen divides the work into four sections: “Flores Caelesti” (“heavenly flowers”), linking human and divine love; “Caelo Marique” (“sky and sea”), using images from nature; “Amor Insanus” (“crazy love”), offering playful and erotic poems; and “Pluit et Lucet” (“It rains and shines”), about the mixed nature (“half vinegar, half honey”) of long relationships. The poet’s use of language can be very effective, as in “I am Yours, a Soulful Avowal”: “I am bound to you, / not by vow, nor by will, nor by law, / but by divine grace.” The anapests in the second quoted line set up a rhythmic feeling of inevitability that helps make the third convincing. She also uses verbs to good effect, as in “To the Mother of My Love —”: “My heart is like a conifer-seed / That millenniums into tree.” The compression of “millenniums” as a verb, combined with the vast time span it connotes and the living result, a tree, conveys the heart’s journey with compact precision. On occasion, Bowen can be overly sentimental (“Two souls knit together. / Two lives become but one”) or employ awkward phrases, as in “Fortitude is the fragrance that drops from the cows,” which unfortunately suggests the odor of animal droppings. But several other works are clever exercises; “Fortune Cookies in Bed,” for instance, seems to be a found poem composed of aphorisms from the titular confections.
A compilation that celebrates the full spectrum of married and divine love, often with sensitivity and gusto.Pub Date: March 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73383-580-0
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Quintara Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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