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
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
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.
Celebrating a beloved artist.
Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many techniques he employed in his art, including camera lucida, computer, and video. Contributors of essays include noted art historians and curators, such as Norman Rosenthal, who edited the volume; Simon Schama; Anne Lyles; James Cahill; and François Michaud. Growing up in the north of England, Hockney was drawn to the light and sparkle that he found in Hollywood movies. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, the sunlit landscapes inspired him, and his new sense of artistic freedom concurred with sexual freedom: As a gay man, he felt liberated from the constraints that had weighed on him in Britain, even in the “relative Bohemia” of the Royal College of Art. Essayists reflect on his artistic interests, such as landscapes, portraiture, flowers, and the opera—for which he created boldly exuberant sets—as well as on his influences and experimentation. Michaud examines the impact on Hockney of a visit to Paris in the 1970s, where he became familiar with Henri Matisse and his contemporaries from museum exhibitions. In the 1990s, visiting his mother and friends in Yorkshire, Hockney painted both outdoors and in the studio, experimenting with various media—including the photocopier and fax machine—as he worked to render the woodsy landscape. As a companion to the exhibition, the volume offers stunning reproductions of Hockney’s prolific works. Enormously popular with museumgoers, Hockney, Rosenthal exults, “transforms the ordinary and the everyday into the remarkable.”
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780500029527
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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