A technically impressive but unenjoyable poem about Trump’s second year in office.
Ravencroft continues his poetic account of the Trump administration in this second volume of comic verse.
Donald Trump has inspired quite a bit of satirical art, though perhaps none of it is as composed as Ravencroft’s rhyming long-form poetry: “It was yet-another fable / When he gave himself a label: / He’s a genius; very stable / Who said Michael Wolff could snoop. / Stephen Bannon had to leave; / He had been choosing to deceive / So Donald broke with Sloppy Steve / For being Michael’s major scoop.” So begins the poet’s second volume in his lyrical account of the Trump presidency, which covers his second year in office. From mishandled tragedies, like school shootings and Hurricane Maria, to pseudo-successes, like the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and Trump’s negotiations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, the poem takes the reader through the highlights—or perhaps lowlights—of the chaotic year. Remember Stormy Daniels? Robert Mueller? The Michaels Flynn, Cohen, and Avenatti? They’re in here. Remember when Dr. Ronny Jackson claimed Trump weighed only 239 pounds and people refused to believe it? That’s in here too. The main concern of the poem (besides the many personal flaws of the eponymous orangutan) is Trump’s mounting legal worries: “So at first, there’s no collusion / Then there is, with one exclusion: / Not a crime; just an intrusion / On the democratic system. / Its foundations are subverting; / It’s unreal and disconcerting; / Lady voters are deserting / As if he or Trump had kissed ’em.” Ravencroft reminds us all what a tough year it was to be Donald J. Trump, one that caused upheaval among his Cabinet and left him limping into a difficult midterm election.
Ravencroft is a disciplined poet. The 44-page poem sticks to a strict AAABCCCB rhyme scheme, with only occasional deviations from its eight-syllable meter. Here he recounts Trump’s clashes with reporter Jim Acosta: “CNN’s got him obsessing; / Their credentials, he’s suppressing; / Jim Acosta is finessing / In his craft to make him cranky. / Jim was told he couldn’t bellow; / For a moment, he would mellow / Then return to be the fellow / Who was handing Trump a hankie.” The tone throughout is irreverent and fairly sophomoric. The poet is just as happy to make fun of Trump’s appearance as he is to criticize his policies. Often, as in relating the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the verse’s snark comes across as flippant and indiscriminate in its targets. The work fits with the anti-Trump social media sentiment of the time, the sort of lowbrow critiques mocked by the “Orange Man Bad” meme. The main problem is not its point of view or its literary merit, however, but simply its untimeliness. It’s difficult to imagine a current audience for a 42-page satirical poem about the second year of the Trump presidency. One can’t help but wish Ravencroft would turn his rhyming talents toward an evergreen subject, or at least one that doesn’t stir up such fatigue.
A technically impressive but unenjoyable poem about Trump’s second year in office.Pub Date: June 19, 2021
ISBN: 979-8523207914
Page Count: 67
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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