A deftly composed collection of poems on the struggle to find meaning in modern life.
Hollywood stars seek enlightenment in this volume of poetry.
Sadhana is a yogic term for “a means of accomplishing something.” In this collection, Nathan imagines the sadhana of various Hollywood celebrities with his tongue very much in cheek. Natalie Portman admires the quirkiness of Winona Ryder: “Winona is the kind of crazy that Natalie will love / even after she drinks all her beer / & wrecks her truck.” Shia LaBeouf takes inspiration from Joaquin Phoenix’s esoteric performance art: “Shia remembers / that time when everyone thought / Joaquin went AWOL from / acting & became a rapper. / Shia is a bona fide fashion icon / & Joaquin has rounded up the actor- / artist’s finest ’fits to prove it.” Jeff Bridges encounters Keanu Reeves eating a sandwich: “Now, let’s just permit / this fear to engulf us for a moment / & not do our normal thing,” the grizzled actor tells the famously serene one. Jodie Foster and Sasha Baron Cohen discuss ancient Buddhist masters: Baron Cohen’s “joke is to show Jodie / a doughnut, eat it, tell her where / it’s been, then reveal / that it wasn’t a doughnut.” These celebrities search for wisdom in one another, music, isolation, and snippets of Eastern philosophical traditions that they may or may not completely understand. (Baron Cohen discusses the 15th-century monk Drukpa Kunley in his Borat voice: “When will I have big penis like / this Bhutanese poet yogi?”) Are these stars any closer to understanding than the rest of humanity? Are they further away?
Nathan proves himself a versatile poet, switching registers between the comic and the serious as well as impersonating different voices. Several poems are written from the perspective of a TMZ–like entertainment news service, which is just as interested in celebrities’ spiritual pursuits as it is in whatever else they do: “You may not have heard, but / our sources tell us Joaquin Phoenix, the star / of Gladiator, aged 42, prepares / to spend the next year on retreat / in a cave. / We were like, ‘OMG / WHAT?’ / Phoenix renounces / his Hollywood lifestyle in favor / of an underground chamber / in the Mojave Desert where / he expects to achieve complete & total / enlightenment.” The author also summons the aesthetics of various filmmakers in poems like “A Shia LaBeouf Dream (dir. Terrence Malick)” and “A Winona Ryder Dream (dir. Tim Burton).” The poems are narratives and very much flow one into the next, with the same cast of actors reappearing and comingling. Nathan is skilled at crafting a succinct, evocative image. He describes Bridges as “a man who fits / perfectly into the clothes / of passing strangers.” LaBeouf’s sex dream includes the lines “Hands tighten around the shaft / as minds pronk off / to starlit savannas.” But the most impressive aspect of the collection is that it transcends its gimmicky conceit to challenge readers to engage sincerely with the notion of enlightenment. By the end of the volume, neither the audience nor the poet is condescending to LaBeouf or Ryder. Instead, all are acclimated to the reality that they are all blindly searching, all absurdly lost.
A deftly composed collection of poems on the struggle to find meaning in modern life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-4438-9
Page Count: 60
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.
Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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