by Stan Badgett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2014
A far-reaching, rambunctious collection.
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Badgett (Rock Dust, 2010, etc.) exhibits impressive artistic range, under a single tent assembling poetry simple and complex, flash fiction, a short dramatic piece and a selection of graphic art including woodcut, collage and photography.
Of the many subjects that inspire Badgett’s fervid and often biting pen—among them ideology and celebrity, intellectualism and authenticity, epistemological puzzles, identity formation and social pressure—none provoke more tender and authentic responses from him than the lives and work of coal miners, a topic he approaches with directness rarely on display elsewhere in the collection. Much like Gary Snyder’s poetry on loggers, Badgett’s miner poems are concrete and unembellished, all the more reverent for their simplicity. Writing about the 1981 Dutch Creek No. 1 mine explosion that killed 15 miners, Badgett honors the men’s unremarkable final moments, emphasizing the looming tragedy through repeated progressive tense verbs: “Waiting to descend / Into the hole, joking / Squinting at the sun / Having a smoke /… / Staring at muddy boots / Daydreaming.” Badgett’s interest in tangible, lived moments takes a Wordsworth-ian turn in “On the Flattops,” in which the narrator alludes to but also deflects attention from an ambiguous moment—perhaps ecstatic, perhaps violent. Instead, he focuses on the landscape and its psychic effects: a “sea breeze blows across this rolling world of / mountain grasses // Over there—at the far end of a long echo / That gash of pink and bone-white limestone” and “These skunk cabbages, these wild / geraniums and pearly everlastings! // We shall walk these windswept hills, / walk these fields in quiet gladness.” Social commentary pervades much of the poetry, as in “Class We Bring Good News,” in which students are taught that “You are meaningless / Machines / You are accidental animals” and then encouraged to “Reach / For the stars / Follow your dream.” The collection takes on an increasingly surreal tone, juxtaposing pop culture and historical images with Badgett’s personal visions, finally culminating in the absurdist, Beckett-inspired drama, “Nothing Fails to Amaze Me,” which features, among other oddities, a scene of five minutes of silence broken up only by 10 seconds of flashing lights. While his more surreal work is so idiosyncratic as to resist general evaluation, Badgett has an undeniable gift for imbuing the most mundane scenes and landscapes with deep, and often dangerous, psychic implications that endow his poetry with a surprising and rewarding psychological profundity.
A far-reaching, rambunctious collection.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499541755
Page Count: 100
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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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
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by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
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
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