by W.S. Di Piero ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 30, 2001
Di Piero’s poems cling tenaciously to the real and hold out for something more true; they scour the world to see past it.
Many of the lyrics in Di Piero’s latest collection are sung from behind the wheel—“Doing seventy across the bridge” or “driving on pills and coffee.” Other poems of the road, less frenzied, more contemplative, are set on buses and airplanes. In most cases, the poet does not know where he is headed (or, if he does, he’s not telling). To hold oneself free from destinations, for Di Piero, allows detail and significance to emerge along the way. In “Oregon Avenue on a Good Day,” the poet returns home, “walking to find / I don’t know what. Something always / offers itself while I’m not watching.” And indeed the prodigal is later graced with an ecstatic vision of the ordinary: “fused presence, a casual fall / of light that strikes and spreads / on enameled aluminum.” Di Piero has a great talent for close description: Streetlamps wear “white boas,” while Van Gogh sports a “cerulean tie rhymed with lapel edging.” To accurately record what he sees, Di Piero is often driven to chewy neologisms: “taffied,” “fisty,” or “conch” (as a verb). Occasionally, these details pile up too fast, threatening a verbal and visual clutter. But such moments of overabundance are balanced by more stringent, more ascetic convictions: “All life / is hidden life,” he cautions in “Some Voice,” and in “Add Salt,” he admits he is “still looking / for the invisible life of things.” In addition to these lyrics of high quest and mundane travel, there are several moving elegies for the poet’s parents. Particularly fine among these is “White Blouse White Shirt,” which ends on a note authentically sublime.
Di Piero’s poems cling tenaciously to the real and hold out for something more true; they scour the world to see past it.Pub Date: May 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-41153-4
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
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BOOK REVIEW
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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