Some standouts but limited overall by the incessant rhyming and some clichéd sentiments.
Bajwa’s debut poetry collection explores spirituality, relationships, and current events.
Bajwa has been writing poetry assiduously for four years after an approximate 25-year hiatus following his high school efforts. Falling into nine thematic sections, these verses use end rhymes along with some half rhymes. In the opening poems, the narrator imagines himself as a silent, wandering observer: “I wanted to be like a river. To just gently flow.” That mellow determination sets an agreeably peripatetic tone. The first section, “Personalities,” contains character studies of heroes and criminals, a dichotomy continued in section three, “Friends and Foes.” Many of the most memorable poems are in part two, “Beauty and Love.” Several are addressed to “Malaguena,” with praise for the beloved’s features echoing the playful verse of Andrew Marvell: “no eyes are so profound, Malaguena, as yours. / Like two suns shining over that beautiful nose.” Other topics include cultivating one’s inner child, drinking with compatriots, and gratitude for freedom. As the title testifies, Bajwa relies heavily on the symbolism of heavenly beings, envisioning ordinary people as fallen angels and vice versa. First-person narratives from God and an angel who left paradise for a human lover imagine the intervention of the spiritual in the everyday. Structurally, the poems generally comprise five or six rhyming couplets. Although these follow no recognizable form, in a few cases, the first stanza is repeated as the last, thus creating a pleasant rounding-off effect. However, Bajwa’s insistence on rhyme can lead to some downright odd combinations, like wharf/dwarf and cute/flute/mute. Reversing normal word order, Bajwa can sound unfortunately Yoda-like in places: “Push oneself one must.” Moreover, most of the poems are printed in an eye-taxing italic font. The conclusions in the section “Life and the Universe” (“Life’s short. So keep smiling and carry on”) may be banal, but the “Current Affairs” section appreciates the complexities of the Middle East.
Some standouts but limited overall by the incessant rhyming and some clichéd sentiments.Pub Date: May 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4834-3172-7
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.
Heidish (A Misplaced Woman, 2016, etc.) presents an account of St. Francis of Assisi’s life, as told from his father’s perspective in poetic form.
St. Francis is known as a saint who believed in living the Gospel, gave sermons to birds, and tamed a wolf. Over the course of 84 poems, Heidish tells her own fictionalized version of the saint’s journey. In his youth, Francesco is an apprentice of his father, Pietro Bernardone, a fabric importer. The boy is a sensitive dreamer and nature lover who sees “natural holiness in every living thing.” As an adult, Francesco decides to pursue knighthood, but God warns him to “Go back, child / Serve the master.” He joins the Church of San Damiano, steals his father’s storeroom stock, and sells it to rebuild the church. His furious father chains him in the cellar, and the bishop orders Francesco to repay the debt. Afterward, father and son stop speaking to each other; Francesco becomes a healer of the sick and a proficient preacher. After failing to broker a peace agreement during wartime, Francesco falls into depression and resigns his church position. He retreats to the mountains and eventually dies; it’s only then that Pietro becomes a true follower of St. Francis: “You are the father now and I the son / learning still what it means to be a saint,” he says. Heidish’s decision to tell this story from Pietro’s perspective is what makes this oft-told legend seem fresh again. She uses superb similes and metaphors; for example, at different points, she writes that St. Francis had eyes like “lit wicks” and a spirit that “shone like a clean copper pot.” In another instance, she describes the Church of San Damiano as a place in which “walls crumbled / like stale dry bread.” Following the poems, the author also offers a thorough and engaging historical summary of the real life of St. Francis, which only adds further context and depth to the tale.
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9905262-1-6
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Dolan & Associates
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.
A debut volume of poetry explores love and war.
Divided into four sections, Osaki’s book covers vast emotional territories. Section 1, entitled “Walking Back the Cat,” is a reflection on youthful relationships both familial and romantic. “Dying Arts,” the second part, is an examination of war and its brutal consequences. But sections three and four, named “Tradecraft” and “Best Evidence” respectively, do not appear to group poems by theme. The collection opens with “My Father Holding Squash,” one of Osaki’s strongest poems. It introduces the poet’s preoccupation with ephemera—particularly old photographs and letters. Here he describes a photo that is “several years old” of his father in his garden. Osaki muses that an invisible caption reads: “Look at this, you poetry-writing / jackass. Not everything I raise is useless!” The squash is described as “bearable fruit,” wryly hinting that the poet son is considered somewhat less bearable in his father’s eyes. Again, in the poem “Photograph,” Osaki is at his best, sensuously describing a shot of a young woman and the fleeting nature of that moment spent with her: “I know only that I was with her / in a room years ago, and that the sun filtering / into that room faded instantly upon striking the floor.” Wistful nostalgia gives way to violence in “Dying Arts.” Poems such as “Preserve” present a battleground dystopia: “Upturned graves and craters / to swim in when it rains. / Small children shake skulls / like rattles, while older ones carve rifles / out of bone.” Meanwhile, “Silver Star” considers the act of escorting the coffin of a dead soldier home, and “Gun Song” ruminates on owning a weapon to protect against home invasion. The language is more jagged here but powerfully unsettling nonetheless. The collection boasts a range of promising poetic voices, but they do not speak to one another, a common pitfall found in debuts. “Walking Back the Cat” is outstanding in its refined attention to detail; the sections following it read as though they have been produced by two or more other poets. Nevertheless, this is thoughtful, timely writing that demands further attention.
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984198-32-7
Page Count: 66
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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