A creative, impressive reminder of the importance of embracing all that life has to offer: sensations, emotions,...
A debut collection offers meditations on the beauty of life and the inevitability of death.
This volume features free verse, prose, and a unique hybrid of the two. As the title suggests, Cruess’ focus here is on mortality, but he approaches this topic from many angles. More often than not, he considers the pressing nature of living one’s life to the fullest. The author sets the tone of gratitude right from the outset, where he imagines that he would enjoy existence even if he were a ginkgo biloba leaf. Cruess describes routine pleasures, like feeling a Los Angeles sea breeze in “Beneath cool sheets” or simply coming home (“i sip my wine and wonder why— / i ever would leave this place”), as well as unforgettable moments such as the birth of a child or the death of a parent. Several deeply affecting works, presented consecutively, address his aging mother’s decline, death, and funeral services, concluding with the simple yet heart-ripping line: “Well, I’m home now, in my slightly smaller world.” In addition to techniques like reduced punctuation and limited capitalization often found in free verse, the author notably employs nonstandard spacing, which allows readers great liberty in creating their own linkages and ruptures between phrases. As these textual gaps catch the eye, readers are free to wonder what they might signify: sudden realizations or doubts, a mental or verbal stutter, a gasp or a sigh, overwhelming emotions like exasperation and awe? Cruess’ combination of poetry and prose is perhaps most effective in “Agnes,” in which he regrets his childhood impatience with his maternal grandmother, who suffered from dementia, and worries that he may share the same genetic predisposition, envisioning a bleak future: “And only now and then / have a moment of clarity when i would know / that i was living in a fog… / …a vertiginous fog.” In contrast, the author also includes some lighthearted prose pieces like “Merry Christmas…you Bitch,” which recounts his wife’s interaction with a discourteous state trooper, and “Rising Unnoticed,” where he recalls an unexpected encounter with a hotel mirror while feeling the effects of alcohol and marijuana.
A creative, impressive reminder of the importance of embracing all that life has to offer: sensations, emotions, observations, and experiences.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-977980-63-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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