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MY DOOMSDAY SAMPLER

Name: MY DOOMSDAY SAMPLER
Author: Sue Owen
ISBN: 0-8071-2402-8

by Sue Owen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

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paper 0-8071-2403-6 The third volume by LSU’s poet-in-residence is a curiosity of sorts: Owen invents her own easy genre, then works it to death in these formulaic poems, with little interior complexity or attention to language. The fifty here, most made up of seven short- lined quatrains, take as points of departure common figures of speech, then attempt to restore meaning to the lost metaphoric content. Thus, —The Fly in the Ointment— is stuck in a hell of filth; —That One Squeaky Wheel— gets the grease because it rightfully deserves the attention; and —Dead Reckoning— simply catalogues the many phrases incorporating the word —dead.— Owen also plays with morality tales by reimagining classic fables: The ant in —The Ant and the Grasshopper— adheres to its survival instinct; in the —The Flaw in the Flue,— the flea and the fly outsmart the flue’s cruel intentions; and the spider is quite considerate of the fly before eating it in —The Spider to the Fly.— A handful of poems reflect on Owen’s craft and its clichÇs; she asks us to consider the finality of —periods,— the quality of —ink,— and the idea of something —Written in Blood.— But her take on the phrase —Work Myself to Death— is pitiful at best: She wants us to feel the pain and suffering that goes into her unrecompensed art. The cleverest aspect of the title poem is its title: the idea of apocalyptic needlework has little to do with the poem itself, an abcedarium that comments on the visual traits of letters in the alphabet. Despite a few buried references to the environment, Owen seldom escapes her admittedly —cute language,— and few of her conundrums are as funny or inventive as you’d expect.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-8071-2402-8

Page Count: 63

Publisher: Louisiana State Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

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NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

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YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.