A moving pictorial study of the meaning of home and an implicit critique of society’s conception of the good life.
Material destitution coexists with spiritual exaltation in this poetic and photographic meditation on homelessness.
Wilson, a photographer and documentarian, shot and talked to people in homeless settlements in Oregon and Washington, sussing out the hard-won insights of these “American street philosophers.” Despite the tenuousness of their camps of cardboard boxes, sleeping bags, and the odd tent hunkered beneath bridges and overpasses that constitute their only shelter against lowering skies, their poetic musings keep returning to a crucial theme: the importance of community. “If the universe aims at richness / then the uniqueness of individuals is prime,” notes Tom, a former philosophy teacher, but he also believes that the “evolution of friendship / is greater, more important / than anything I could own or collect.” It’s a poignant reminder that the loss of connection to other people, even more than the loss of a house, is the central tragedy of homelessness. The second half of the debut book therefore explores Dignity Village, a settlement situated in a Portland parking lot where some homeless people have regained permanent shelter in the form of 42 tiny houses built from castoff and recycled building materials and supported by donations and residents’ sweat equity. It’s a slightly preachy place—“solar and wind powered,” with composting toilets and organic gardens—and its ethos is one of austere self-sufficiency. Writes resident Paul C., “Welfare begets welfare… / strips dignity, self-esteem, self-worth, self-reliance,” while Ed G. counsels an almost Buddhist renunciation of the material world as the path to freedom: “The more you have the more you want / and you stay unhappy because / there’s always more to want.” But autonomy is as much a group as an individual enterprise to judge by Wilson’s appealing photos of Dignity Villagers cooperatively building houses, staging barbecues, and painting their brightly colored sheds with cat murals to beautify the neighborhood. Even more captivating are his portraits of people—old couples, grizzled loners, toddlers, young people busking on the accordion for change—which bring to life these often invisible Americans in all their vibrant humanity.
A moving pictorial study of the meaning of home and an implicit critique of society’s conception of the good life.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.
Heidish (A Misplaced Woman, 2016, etc.) presents an account of St. Francis of Assisi’s life, as told from his father’s perspective in poetic form.
St. Francis is known as a saint who believed in living the Gospel, gave sermons to birds, and tamed a wolf. Over the course of 84 poems, Heidish tells her own fictionalized version of the saint’s journey. In his youth, Francesco is an apprentice of his father, Pietro Bernardone, a fabric importer. The boy is a sensitive dreamer and nature lover who sees “natural holiness in every living thing.” As an adult, Francesco decides to pursue knighthood, but God warns him to “Go back, child / Serve the master.” He joins the Church of San Damiano, steals his father’s storeroom stock, and sells it to rebuild the church. His furious father chains him in the cellar, and the bishop orders Francesco to repay the debt. Afterward, father and son stop speaking to each other; Francesco becomes a healer of the sick and a proficient preacher. After failing to broker a peace agreement during wartime, Francesco falls into depression and resigns his church position. He retreats to the mountains and eventually dies; it’s only then that Pietro becomes a true follower of St. Francis: “You are the father now and I the son / learning still what it means to be a saint,” he says. Heidish’s decision to tell this story from Pietro’s perspective is what makes this oft-told legend seem fresh again. She uses superb similes and metaphors; for example, at different points, she writes that St. Francis had eyes like “lit wicks” and a spirit that “shone like a clean copper pot.” In another instance, she describes the Church of San Damiano as a place in which “walls crumbled / like stale dry bread.” Following the poems, the author also offers a thorough and engaging historical summary of the real life of St. Francis, which only adds further context and depth to the tale.
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9905262-1-6
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Dolan & Associates
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.
A debut volume of poetry explores love and war.
Divided into four sections, Osaki’s book covers vast emotional territories. Section 1, entitled “Walking Back the Cat,” is a reflection on youthful relationships both familial and romantic. “Dying Arts,” the second part, is an examination of war and its brutal consequences. But sections three and four, named “Tradecraft” and “Best Evidence” respectively, do not appear to group poems by theme. The collection opens with “My Father Holding Squash,” one of Osaki’s strongest poems. It introduces the poet’s preoccupation with ephemera—particularly old photographs and letters. Here he describes a photo that is “several years old” of his father in his garden. Osaki muses that an invisible caption reads: “Look at this, you poetry-writing / jackass. Not everything I raise is useless!” The squash is described as “bearable fruit,” wryly hinting that the poet son is considered somewhat less bearable in his father’s eyes. Again, in the poem “Photograph,” Osaki is at his best, sensuously describing a shot of a young woman and the fleeting nature of that moment spent with her: “I know only that I was with her / in a room years ago, and that the sun filtering / into that room faded instantly upon striking the floor.” Wistful nostalgia gives way to violence in “Dying Arts.” Poems such as “Preserve” present a battleground dystopia: “Upturned graves and craters / to swim in when it rains. / Small children shake skulls / like rattles, while older ones carve rifles / out of bone.” Meanwhile, “Silver Star” considers the act of escorting the coffin of a dead soldier home, and “Gun Song” ruminates on owning a weapon to protect against home invasion. The language is more jagged here but powerfully unsettling nonetheless. The collection boasts a range of promising poetic voices, but they do not speak to one another, a common pitfall found in debuts. “Walking Back the Cat” is outstanding in its refined attention to detail; the sections following it read as though they have been produced by two or more other poets. Nevertheless, this is thoughtful, timely writing that demands further attention.
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984198-32-7
Page Count: 66
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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