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
For devoted Hannah fans in search of a good cry.
The miseries of the Depression and Dust Bowl years shape the destiny of a Texas family.
“Hope is a coin I carry: an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love. There were times in my journey when I felt as if that penny and the hope it represented were the only things that kept me going.” We meet Elsa Wolcott in Dalhart, Texas, in 1921, on the eve of her 25th birthday, and wind up with her in California in 1936 in a saga of almost unrelieved woe. Despised by her shallow parents and sisters for being sickly and unattractive—“too tall, too thin, too pale, too unsure of herself”—Elsa escapes their cruelty when a single night of abandon leads to pregnancy and forced marriage to the son of Italian immigrant farmers. Though she finds some joy working the land, tending the animals, and learning her way around Mama Rose's kitchen, her marriage is never happy, the pleasures of early motherhood are brief, and soon the disastrous droughts of the 1930s drive all the farmers of the area to despair and starvation. Elsa's search for a better life for her children takes them out west to California, where things turn out to be even worse. While she never overcomes her low self-esteem about her looks, Elsa displays an iron core of character and courage as she faces dust storms, floods, hunger riots, homelessness, poverty, the misery of migrant labor, bigotry, union busting, violent goons, and more. The pedantic aims of the novel are hard to ignore as Hannah embodies her history lesson in what feels like a series of sepia-toned postcards depicting melodramatic scenes and clichéd emotions.
For devoted Hannah fans in search of a good cry.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-2501-7860-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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