Provocative verse set to the rhythm of the tracks.
A debut book of poetry that celebrates one of the oldest, most venerable forms of mass transit.
Two admirable urges drive Newcomb’s new collection of train poems. The first is the author’s sense that Americans have left their vast continent unexplored; they rush off to Europe and the Caribbean without realizing that a treasure trove awaits right off the nearest rail line. Therefore, much of his verse celebrates the beauties of the landscape he sees on his own numerous rail trips. “Montana Daybreak” presents that state’s “highest hills…aglow with light. / Herons continue to sleep in the trees by a marsh / And coyotes search for prey by the smell, / Unafraid of men.” A later poem, “Mountain Winter above Stevens Pass,” gives a glimpse of one of Washington state’s gems: “Skyline Lake, frozen deader than a doornail, / Has cleared the sky of trees. / Somewhere underneath the buried, silent ice, / Hibernating frogs and cold sluggish fish EXIST.” In his nature poetry, Newcomb resembles the poet Gary Snyder, who mixes unpretentiousness with a keen attention to detail in his own celebrations of the Pacific Northwest. The second force animating Newcomb’s verse is his desire to encourage others to shift toward more sustainable forms of transportation. (The poet is also an accredited greenhouse-gas analyst.) In other words, he seems deeply aware of the fact that train travel will help people protect the natural wonders they see on their journeys. Thus, a sense of ecological responsibility anchors poems such as “Thoreau on Wildness,” which opens with Henry David Thoreau’s famous reminder, from his essay “Walking,” that “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” As that poem wraps up, Newcomb writes, “Thoreau hoped that we might have the capacity / To appreciate wildness / And to feel the connection between ourselves and nature, / But he knew from his travels / That men will change or eradicate wildness.” Train travel, the author hopes, will help us appreciate more and eradicate less.
Provocative verse set to the rhythm of the tracks.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9877268-6-5
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Neshama Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 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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