A harrowing and ultimately inspiring set of poems.
Goldstein’s debut poetry collection addresses the sexual abuse of a child by a family member and the difficult process of healing.
In these works—many of which were previously published in the poetry journals The Laurel Review, Rust + Moth, and others—a young boy is sexually victimized by his older brother and goes through various stages of dealing with the trauma as an adult. In one poem, the speaker expresses anger at his parents for their eventual reaction to the abuse, which continued for more than two years: “Why can’t you see I crack & cry & break & bleed? / I am the egg. He is the fox” (“Fragile”). He also deals with internalized feelings of blame and shame (“Growth”), expresses a feeling of disconnection from his Jewish faith in “Wandering In Search of Truth” (“Where was Your parting of the sea / while I was being torn apart?”), and tells of seeking help in therapy (“This Is My Story”). Readers may find these emotional works about trauma and its aftermath to be difficult to read, but throughout this collection, the poet skillfully keeps the poems short, which makes them easier to process while also giving them a feeling of forward momentum. Often, at a poem’s conclusion, readers will have the feeling that an insight has prepared the speaker for a new phase of a healing journey; in short, the works very often give the reader hope of better things ahead for the speaker. By closing his collection with poems with phrases such as, “We are the testaments to the fact that gates can rust & not break. / …. / Hollowed-out hearts can be refilled, remade, renewed” (“We Are the Flowers in That Good Earth”) and “The wind blows & I am unafraid” (“The Aftertaste of the Wind”), Goldstein leaves readers on an optimistic note and with the feeling that daunting obstacles can be overcome.
A harrowing and ultimately inspiring set of poems.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-945233-14-2
Page Count: 92
Publisher: Stillhouse Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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