by Vera Stasny ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 9, 2018
Touching poems that show readers both the storm and the calm that can follow.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
A debut collection details the ways that poetry can help transform pain into hope and healing.
In the early 1990s, literary critics began arguing that poems might serve as effective vehicles for expressing psychic suffering. Or, as the eminent critic Geoffrey Hartman put it, verse might help people “read the wound” of trauma. Stasny seems to take this belief as an article of faith in her collection, which seeks to put some of her own deepest hurts into poetic form. The book opens with the aptly titled “Trauma,” which begins: “Snippets of memory. / Emotions vivid and too frightening / haunt and disrupt us. / Will we dare to reveal them? / Or keep them buried in the recesses of our brains and / trapped in our bodies?” The answer to this last question, for the poet at least, seems to be a resounding no, and the pages that follow feature her efforts to bring these haunting emotions to the surface with the help of the written word. Stasny uses a variety of imagery and metaphors to try to express her pain to others. At times, her traumas turn her life into a roller coaster: “I am calm, relaxed… / then some thought enters unannounced into my / consciousness / and the panic sets in. / I stop breathing properly and start holding my breath. / My stomach churns.” Here and elsewhere, the author is particularly good at demonstrating the ways in which psychic pain lodges in the body—how mental strife has physical effects. She makes readers feel the shortness of her breath and the churning in her gut. But even in such struggles, there is hope, and her verse also testifies to the possibility of recovery: “A heart hidden away by an invisible wall is a broken heart. / It can be repaired. / It can be mended. / It can be restored. / This is an invitation.” Her moving book is an invitation as well—one those suffering from trauma would do well to accept.
Touching poems that show readers both the storm and the calm that can follow.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-982207-90-8
Page Count: 100
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by William Poe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2015
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.