A set of concise, sometimes-powerful poems that often escape concrete definition.
Hubbard’s debut collection features elusive images and ideas in brief poetic forms.
In a preface, the author states that his poems are akin to “objects in space existing as neither planets nor stars.” This quality of liminality, of existing within a state between form and formlessness, most readily appears within his cycle of haiku, using the succinct Japanese form to capture moods: “frozen ice droplet / clinging fast to window screen / space on either side” (“winter view (d)”).But the limits of science and the language of mathematics also weave in and out of many of Hubbard’s other works, as in his observation that “now galaxies / hang like grape clusters / on invisible vines of dark matter” (“In a Time Lapse”). Sometimes a passage will strike with intense feeling and seems to yearn to break out of compact formal structures; when Hubbard writes that “Our hearts were wild; / our minds incendiary, / as we drank raw the violence” (“Lamentation”), one longs for more description and insight. Indeed, the solipsistic nature of some poems sometimes shades into the opaque, as in this complete poem: “nightmare shadows day / tucked ring and necklace / under cross to assess / a willful blindness” (“Classified”). The latter half of Hubbard’s collection (“The Love Studies”) seems as if it were composed for someone specific, as the works within it are filled with clues and details only a specific lover could decode: “If mercy mixed with turmeric and honey / Tastes something like cloud” (“How I Might Be Spectacularly Wrong”). Although the book’s first part, “The Time Studies,” frequently escapes concrete meaning, as well, its blending of scientific jargon with poetic form remains appealing throughout, such as when “Matrices” alludes to “a dream unfolded in linear equations. / But the numerals vanished when I tried to solve.”
A set of concise, sometimes-powerful poems that often escape concrete definition.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63988-475-9
Page Count: 68
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A detailed look at an important chapter in the life of one of the iconic artists of the late 20th century.
Lavishly illustrated volume chronicling Lennon and Ono’s years in New York, leading up to the recording of John’s 1973 album, Mind Games.
The book is organized largely along chronological lines, with photos, interviews, letters, and poems from each period. The photos are the weakest element, with too many minor variations of the same shots. There is a fair amount of material on their political activism, a lot of it in response to Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign for reelection. At first the couple associated with American radicals such as Abbie Hoffman and John Sinclair, but the attraction wore off when it became clear that they saw Lennon mainly as someone who could help draw attention to the movement. Lennon underwent a protracted battle to avoid deportation, nominally because of his 1970 London arrest for possession of marijuana, but just as likely because of his political activism. There is also a good bit of material on Lennon’s conversion to feminism and his work for women’s rights, on the mystical influences on his and Ono’s work, and on their lives together. The most interesting aspect of the book to students of Lennon’s music is undoubtedly the inclusion of lyrics from his songs of the era, usually accompanied on facing pages by the former Beatle’s handwritten drafts, with guitar chords indicated and his comments on the song’s inspiration. The final few pages are given up to interviews of the backing musicians and recording engineers who worked on the Mind Games album.
A detailed look at an important chapter in the life of one of the iconic artists of the late 20th century.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780500027783
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.
Celebrating a beloved artist.
Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many techniques he employed in his art, including camera lucida, computer, and video. Contributors of essays include noted art historians and curators, such as Norman Rosenthal, who edited the volume; Simon Schama; Anne Lyles; James Cahill; and François Michaud. Growing up in the north of England, Hockney was drawn to the light and sparkle that he found in Hollywood movies. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, the sunlit landscapes inspired him, and his new sense of artistic freedom concurred with sexual freedom: As a gay man, he felt liberated from the constraints that had weighed on him in Britain, even in the “relative Bohemia” of the Royal College of Art. Essayists reflect on his artistic interests, such as landscapes, portraiture, flowers, and the opera—for which he created boldly exuberant sets—as well as on his influences and experimentation. Michaud examines the impact on Hockney of a visit to Paris in the 1970s, where he became familiar with Henri Matisse and his contemporaries from museum exhibitions. In the 1990s, visiting his mother and friends in Yorkshire, Hockney painted both outdoors and in the studio, experimenting with various media—including the photocopier and fax machine—as he worked to render the woodsy landscape. As a companion to the exhibition, the volume offers stunning reproductions of Hockney’s prolific works. Enormously popular with museumgoers, Hockney, Rosenthal exults, “transforms the ordinary and the everyday into the remarkable.”
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780500029527
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
