by Robert Cruess ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 13, 2018
A worthy collection full of memorable anecdotes and meditative verse.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
A volume explores nature, history, mortality, and the wonder of living in poetry and prose.
In this collection of 66 short works, Cruess (Time Is All We Have, 2017) revisits themes and techniques featured in his debut book. Whether inspired by the music of Rosanne Cash, Mama Cass, Leonard Cohen, Sarah Brightman, or Andrea Bocelli or by national tragedies like the Challenger explosion in 1986 or the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the author is able to construct thought-provoking texts in a concise manner. For example, in the prose piece “The Bridge,” he manages to connect disparate moments spanning several decades within the space of three pages: hearing news of the Chappaquiddick scandal in 1969 while working in Venezuela; spotting the infamous bridge from an airplane 10 years later; interacting with Edward Kennedy during the 1980 presidential campaign; and watching the 2017 film about the tragedy. Indeed, the author’s extensive travels provide many opportunities for observation and interpretation. Notably, solid Spanish skills are on display in his translations of a relatively long graffiti text spotted in Havana and a conversation with a cab driver in San Juan. An encounter with a street cleaner in Havana, recounted in the tale titled “Diego,” encapsulates the Mariel boatlift from 1980 and an ignominious return to Cuba years later. In terms of poetry, readers with a keen eye and an attuned ear will appreciate the consonance and assonance in his description of an earthquake: “The room moves / Like a rag doll / In a big dog’s mouth.” Cruess illuminates more mundane events in verse as well, such as spending a humid Easter weekend in Miami’s Little Havana: “Bed sweating wet / in the light of / a tropical / moon sucking breezes / through coconut palms.” Through creative use of line breaks, indentation, and gaps within lines, his verse often invites multiple readings. He also juxtaposes poems to great effect, such as “Old,” “My Dad on his 86th,” and “Papa, must I die?” The first represents the common experience of turning into one’s parents. In the second, he gazes down mournfully at his elderly father. And in the third, a father speaks to a child about death, closing with two tender lines: “Without thinking twice / I would choose this time with you.”
A worthy collection full of memorable anecdotes and meditative verse.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-79161-678-6
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Out Reach Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
More by Robert Cruess
BOOK REVIEW
by J.C. Salazar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2018
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.C. Salazar
BOOK REVIEW
by J.C. Salazar
by Kate Lee Diehl illustrated by Kathryn Dimenichi John Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2015
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.