An amusing, candid collection that shows that sincerity and laughter can open hearts.
Baillou, in a series of poems, guides readers through a wondrous landscape of love.
The book begins with a brief sermon about love’s rarity, preciousness, and transformative power, then shifts into a coaching narrative, presenting a step-by-step tutorial. Along the way, the author urges readers to write a poem a day for 30 consecutive days to their love interests, trusting spontaneity and allowing emotions to build naturally. An initial dedication to water as the giver of life frames the collection, suggesting that love, much like water, flows, nourishes, and reshapes one’s inner world. What follows is a series of quirky, freeform odes with varied formats that celebrate an anonymous woman’s appearance, spirit, intelligence, emotional resonance, and compatibility with the speaker. Baillou employs irregular punctuation, unconventional spellings, and experimental layouts with varying text sizes, line breaks, and rhyme schemes to give each piece a playful, open-mic energy. Not every poem hits the mark, but the language is refreshingly unpretentious,offering a reminder that authentic expression requires no gilded decoration: “Our future looks clear. / let me whisper in your ear. / This magic that’s between us may it never disappear.” The content of many of the poems would surely coax laughter, affectionate eyerolls, and loyal, amorous embraces from their muse, and they’ll equally entertain readers. At its core, Baillou’s blend of comedy, bluntness, and slang effectively models daily acts of kindness. A concluding note encourages readers toward devotion and humor. Overall, the collection’s gritty originality, honest delivery, and spirited tone will make it accessible and inspirational to aspiring poets.
An amusing, candid collection that shows that sincerity and laughter can open hearts.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9798992320411
Page Count: 58
Publisher: BalowZoomBooks
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A small gem of medical philosophy.
In his second book on medical ethics, philosopher Gorovitz (Syracuse Univ.) reports on his seven weeks in 1985 as "Authorized Snoop and Irritant-at-Large" at Boston's renowned Beth Israel Hospital.
As in Doctor's Dilemmas (1982), here Gorovitz tackles some tough topics: abortion, "do-not-resuscitate" orders, transplantations, and other issues circling around the question of "where to draw the line." His judicious investigations will not please hard-liners on either side. For instance, while supporting most fetal-tissue research, he opposes interspecies transplants; he restages the abortion debate on high moral ground, exploring prevailing community standards and such vexing questions as what happens when an aborted fetus survives the operation, in the process forging a middle path between abortion-on-demand and no-abortions-ever. Hospital advertisements, medical expenses, surrogate motherhood, and doctor-patient relations are among other issues explored with characteristic care. This all may sound dry, but in fact it's captivating, thanks to Gorovitz's decision to confront issues as they naturally arise in the course of day-to-day hospital operations. This grounds his difficult, sometimes abstruse themes in real-life, flesh-and-blood struggles, giving his conclusions added authority.
A small gem of medical philosophy.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1990
ISBN: 19-504428-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
What curmudgeon would argue?
Once there was a parablist named Joshua and at times his fresh new parables were received with open minds by reviewers (Joshua in the Holy Land, 1992) as Joshua brought peace to the strife-torn Middle East. Yet in still later sheaves, as Joshua set about reforming sin-laden New York City, reviewers felt an encroaching blandness wash over them (Joshua and the City, 1995).
Clearly one cannot read all of Joshua’s parables at one sitting, particularly when one may not share Joshua’s views that God awaits all at journey’s end and will judge the righteous and the unrighteous and that heaven is a shining city to be sought under the guidance of the church while God counts (and recounts) votes for or against us with His mind as open as a left-wing liberal’s while perhaps weighing our interest in the social security of our offspring and the need for enforcing or cutting the death tax and measuring our decision to back or not back legal executions for capital offenses. Why not, a Republican might ask, embrace the wealthy just as warmly as we do the poor and spiritually disenfranchised? But Joshua’s latest parables fearlessly take on the hardhearted businessman, obsessed by the ever-rising value of his stocks, and in no way support Big Money. He takes on moviemakers focused on massacres. He dispenses wisdom about marriage in the parable in which Satan seduces the devoted wife, and in the parable of the ants shows how the peaceful and cooperative ant builds a healthy home life that husbands and wives should look to—though he fails to note the rages between rival ant colonies. To one synagogue he describes God as a Supreme Artist whose masterpiece includes the most far-flung matter in the Universe and whose Artistic Genius is not to be understood quickly, although He has a tender heart, witness our taste buds and eyes and ears for experiencing the ecstasy of His creation.
What curmudgeon would argue?Pub Date: March 20, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-49511-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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