It's been a while since I have written a long review, and longer still since I have posted one on this blog. Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month has been waiting patiently for its turn to be reviewed, and at long last I have written.
The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar (Papaveria Press, 2010, 73 pp.) - Amal El-Mohtar has been making a name for herself in the science fiction/fantasy writing community over the past year or so, winning the 2009 Rhysling Award in the short poem category for her poem Song for an Ancient City, continuing to co-edit the journal Goblin Fruit (of which I am a rather large fan), publishing her poetry and fiction in multiple journals and anthologies (including two appearances over at Podcastle), and publishing her first full-length collection, The Honey Month.
The first thing you notice when you pick up The Honey Month is the gorgeous design and artwork. Amal is now connected in my head with the artist Oliver Hunter, who not only creates original artwork and design for most of the issues of Goblin Fruit, but has created cover art and beautiful interior color and b&w illustrations for The Honey Month as well (I want Oliver to illustrate my book!). Taking a peek at Papaveria's website I see that they specialize in small handmade editions of books, so it does not at all surprise me that the design for Amal's book (which is not handmade, I suspect in order to make it easier to have a much larger print run) has been done with exceptional care.
The concept behind The Honey Month is an intriguing one. I follow Amal's blog, and actually read the project in its first incarnation. A friend of hers had gifted her with a set of 28 different honeys and Amal decided to taste one honey each day for the entire month of February and write a response of some sort to each honey. Some responses were poems, others short fiction, and other a melding of the two. She posted the responses on her blog, much to the delight of those of us reading, and after the project's completion, ended up with a publication deal from Papaveria. I love the idea of writing "projects", though I'm not particularly good at timely follow-through (the chapbook I most recently finished took me 4 years to complete) and am extremely impressed by Amal's work on this lovely project of synesthesia.
Each piece is titled with the day, and the name of the honey sampled on that day (ex. Day 9 - Zambian Honey). Amal then describes the color of the honey ("Sunshine in Ottawa, and a little paler still"), the smell ("More than a flower, something else, something earthy and nutty and malty at once. Hints of green and smoke, substance") and the taste ("A burnt wood taste, hints of anise; this is a honey that tastes very brown and black, dark with slants of light in it"). In some cases, the descriptions were my favorite part of the day's piece. Amal's personality and voice come through remarkably well in these short lines.
The creative works that follow the honey descriptions range from 6-line poems to 4-page stories, and most of them carry the fantastical element found in much of Amal's work. I particularly enjoyed the very-short fiction that accompanied Day 25's Raw Manuka Honey - essentially a story of the regret of a woman who has given up freedom in exchange for stability (of course, with a magical twist), the playfulness of the story for Day 7's Thistle Honey, and the simple bittersweetness of the poem of Day 20's Blackberry Honey (2). Not all 28 offerings were as strong as these - there were a couple that I felt would have benefited from a bit of expansion - but then, I do not expect to love every piece when I read a book, and do have an admitted bias against rhyming poetry (which pops up once or twice in The Honey Month). However, each piece did (quite successfully) give me a greater sense of having shared in Amal's experience of the honey.
It was also particularly nice to see a collection that brought poetry and fiction by the same author together - too often the two are kept away from one another, and it was pleasing to have the chance to read Amal's poetry alongside her fiction. As a poet I am usually much more partial to poetry than fiction, but will say that I found myself as drawn in by the fiction in The Honey Month as I was by the poetry, by the evocative and lush language found in both.
Unfortunately, I did stumble across one or two typos while reading, but they were but a mild distraction and will perhaps be corrected in a second printing. Papaveria Press notes that with a future edition of The Honey Month they will be including a sample of one of the same honeys written of in the book. As I have no idea where one would obtain the honeys written of by Amal, I can't wait to see this idea developed.
On the whole, The Honey Month is a conceptually beautiful, well-written, well-designed book put out by a press that clearly puts great care into the artistry of their books, and written by an author I would love to see get attention not only from the speculative writing community, but from the literary community as well.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Micro Reviews - Diane DiPrima and Juliet Cook
I'm still playing catch-up with review writing and not doing a terribly good job with it, honestly. I read a lot, then I got really sick, and now, because being sick for 3+ weeks means I didn't exercise in 3+ weeks I'm in that emotional funk that, for me, goes with it being winter and not exercising. It's an amazing cycle that gets me watching multiple episodes of The Office in one sitting rather than doing what I ought to do which is get off my butt and exercise.
However! Yesterday I briefly got off my butt and exercised for about 40 minutes (and could tell that it had definitely been almost a month since my last spin on the elliptical machine because at 40 minutes I was sweating way more than usual) and I read Planchette by Juliet Cook (pretty sure this is the last chapbook of hers I own and still had to read) and Loba, Part 1 by Diane di Prima (it's a first edition and I found it at Caliban Books a while ago. Very exciting. It does not exist on Goodreads.)
I'm not really sure how to deal with the awful funk I get into when I don't exercise regularly. It's amazing how that exercise, though, is more effective than therapy or medication ever were - you know, presuming I keep up with it. As someone who sits at a desk for 8+ hours a day, I don't really get much in the way of exercise unless I purposefully pursue it, and while when I'm on a roll with the exercise it is extremely easy to motivate myself to stay in the habit, but when illness hits me, after I recover I'm usually a bit down, and with that and lack of exercise comes a lack of energy and a vicious cycle that I really end up clawing my way out out.
Okay. Enough complaining.
Loba, Part 1 by Diane di Prima (Capra Press, 1973) - Diane di Prima is one of the most well-known women of the Beat movement and more people should really be reading her/knowing about her. Her poetry is beautiful - Crystal and I have performed her "More or Less Love Poems" at Kerouac Fest and for The TypewriterGirls Save the Libraries, always with an enthusiastic audience response. I've been meaning to read Loba for a while now and honestly, am a bit embarassed to admit that this is my first dive into the series. This was a great chapbook to start off 2011 with. Lately, I've been drawn more and more into shamanism, mysticism, and earth spiritualities and these things are hard to find in poetry that I also feel is well-written. These elements are certainly present in Loba, Part 1 as di Prima follows the Loba, an otherworldly she-wolf, through the book. Perhaps my favorite piece, though, was the one that opened the chapbook, a poem to the speaker's "lost moon sisters" - all the women who have lost their way, their sense of self, who the speak has not met, who the speaker mourns for. Definitely a poem that I will force my husband to listen to me read aloud. I am very very excited to read the complete Loba which is sitting on my shelf, waiting for me at home.
Planchette by Juliet Cook (Blood Pudding Press, 2008) - anyone who has read previous mini reviews by me knows that I love Juliet's poetry, and of course Planchette was no exception. Perhaps my reviews of Juliet's work should simply read "It was Juliet Cook. What do you think?". But no, I will be more descriptive than that. In this collection, I was particularly impressed with how well each poem fit together with the others. The entire collection was pale and haunted. There were hauntings of the body, hauntings of food, hauntings of dolls, hauntings of furniture, hauntings of spiders, and yes, hauntings of homes. I enjoyed how poems would reference one another, yet not be dependent upon one another in order to be understood and appreciated. I felt as though I was being lead through a tour of quiet madness by someone who, themself, was quite mad. As is always a strength in Juliet's writing, there is beauty in the grotesque of Planchette, and, I feel, a strong feminist undertone to her writing about women made pale with blood made thin and fingertips snipped off (though Juliet herself has told me she's been called everything from a radical feminist to an anti-feminist by those who have read her poetry). You can purchase a copy of Planchette at the Blood Pudding Press etsy store, as linked above, and I highly recommend it.
I am working on what I think is the title poem for my full-length collection. As of right now, that collection is one of poems on women of spiritual power, but we shall see how it evolves.
However! Yesterday I briefly got off my butt and exercised for about 40 minutes (and could tell that it had definitely been almost a month since my last spin on the elliptical machine because at 40 minutes I was sweating way more than usual) and I read Planchette by Juliet Cook (pretty sure this is the last chapbook of hers I own and still had to read) and Loba, Part 1 by Diane di Prima (it's a first edition and I found it at Caliban Books a while ago. Very exciting. It does not exist on Goodreads.)
I'm not really sure how to deal with the awful funk I get into when I don't exercise regularly. It's amazing how that exercise, though, is more effective than therapy or medication ever were - you know, presuming I keep up with it. As someone who sits at a desk for 8+ hours a day, I don't really get much in the way of exercise unless I purposefully pursue it, and while when I'm on a roll with the exercise it is extremely easy to motivate myself to stay in the habit, but when illness hits me, after I recover I'm usually a bit down, and with that and lack of exercise comes a lack of energy and a vicious cycle that I really end up clawing my way out out.
Okay. Enough complaining.
Loba, Part 1 by Diane di Prima (Capra Press, 1973) - Diane di Prima is one of the most well-known women of the Beat movement and more people should really be reading her/knowing about her. Her poetry is beautiful - Crystal and I have performed her "More or Less Love Poems" at Kerouac Fest and for The TypewriterGirls Save the Libraries, always with an enthusiastic audience response. I've been meaning to read Loba for a while now and honestly, am a bit embarassed to admit that this is my first dive into the series. This was a great chapbook to start off 2011 with. Lately, I've been drawn more and more into shamanism, mysticism, and earth spiritualities and these things are hard to find in poetry that I also feel is well-written. These elements are certainly present in Loba, Part 1 as di Prima follows the Loba, an otherworldly she-wolf, through the book. Perhaps my favorite piece, though, was the one that opened the chapbook, a poem to the speaker's "lost moon sisters" - all the women who have lost their way, their sense of self, who the speak has not met, who the speaker mourns for. Definitely a poem that I will force my husband to listen to me read aloud. I am very very excited to read the complete Loba which is sitting on my shelf, waiting for me at home.
Planchette by Juliet Cook (Blood Pudding Press, 2008) - anyone who has read previous mini reviews by me knows that I love Juliet's poetry, and of course Planchette was no exception. Perhaps my reviews of Juliet's work should simply read "It was Juliet Cook. What do you think?". But no, I will be more descriptive than that. In this collection, I was particularly impressed with how well each poem fit together with the others. The entire collection was pale and haunted. There were hauntings of the body, hauntings of food, hauntings of dolls, hauntings of furniture, hauntings of spiders, and yes, hauntings of homes. I enjoyed how poems would reference one another, yet not be dependent upon one another in order to be understood and appreciated. I felt as though I was being lead through a tour of quiet madness by someone who, themself, was quite mad. As is always a strength in Juliet's writing, there is beauty in the grotesque of Planchette, and, I feel, a strong feminist undertone to her writing about women made pale with blood made thin and fingertips snipped off (though Juliet herself has told me she's been called everything from a radical feminist to an anti-feminist by those who have read her poetry). You can purchase a copy of Planchette at the Blood Pudding Press etsy store, as linked above, and I highly recommend it.
I am working on what I think is the title poem for my full-length collection. As of right now, that collection is one of poems on women of spiritual power, but we shall see how it evolves.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
the thing with feathers
No new reviews yet - I was sick for a little while last week (making it 3 straight weeks of illness altogether) and then a few friends came into town from Chicago and I spent the past 3 days with them and some amazing people from Pittsburgh and actually ignored the internet entirely for about 36 hours. It was beautiful.
New Years was so very interesting and lovely. I got phone calls from people who never call me. I cried twice. I braided someone's hair. I learned a song. I felt love.
I know the whole year won't be like this. I know difficult things will happen. I know I will not always be crying because I am grateful and I am being hugged by someone who has changed my life in ways I don't even understand yet. I also know that I have a husband who loves me, a child who I love, and more things to be grateful for than I could list here.
I dislike New Year's resolutions (does anyone really like them?) - I inevitably forget about them/fail at them. I do like hope, though, so here are my hopes for 2011.
- I hope that I can have radical spiritual experiences. I don't write about my spirituality much here - it's sort of a private, non-internet aspect of my life. However, I can say that in the past 4 years my spiritual journey has lead me back to a place that is closest to how I understood spirituality as a very young child, and this makes me more at peace than I think I've ever been.
- I hope that I can read more poetry.
- I hope that I can write more poetry.
- I hope that I can grow as a parent, as a partner, and as a woman.
- I hope that I can gain deeper understanding of myself and where I am most needed.
Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul,/And sings the tune--without the words,/And never stops at all - Emily Dickinson
New Years was so very interesting and lovely. I got phone calls from people who never call me. I cried twice. I braided someone's hair. I learned a song. I felt love.
I know the whole year won't be like this. I know difficult things will happen. I know I will not always be crying because I am grateful and I am being hugged by someone who has changed my life in ways I don't even understand yet. I also know that I have a husband who loves me, a child who I love, and more things to be grateful for than I could list here.
I dislike New Year's resolutions (does anyone really like them?) - I inevitably forget about them/fail at them. I do like hope, though, so here are my hopes for 2011.
- I hope that I can have radical spiritual experiences. I don't write about my spirituality much here - it's sort of a private, non-internet aspect of my life. However, I can say that in the past 4 years my spiritual journey has lead me back to a place that is closest to how I understood spirituality as a very young child, and this makes me more at peace than I think I've ever been.
- I hope that I can read more poetry.
- I hope that I can write more poetry.
- I hope that I can grow as a parent, as a partner, and as a woman.
- I hope that I can gain deeper understanding of myself and where I am most needed.
Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul,/And sings the tune--without the words,/And never stops at all - Emily Dickinson
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Books and Chapbooks I read in 2010
Everybody's doing it!
I read a lot more books and chapbooks this year than I did last year. A lot more. Because I was editor of a literary journal last year, though, the volume of writing that I read probably went down a little bit. I'm okay with that.
Anywho - the list in no particular order and probably not completely complete!
1. Cyborgia by Susan Slaviero - one of my most recent reads and one that I am in the process of reviewing. Review preview - Buy This Book Now.
2. Soft Foam by Juliet Cook - In my top 5 reads for the year.
3. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut - My favorite book in high school. It is still awesome.
4. A Pint for the Ghost by Helen Mort - Another one that I need to finish my review of. Another amazing chapbook. I'd also put this one in my top 5.
5. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood - It may come as a surprise that before 2010 I had only read Margaret Atwood's poetry. I enjoyed this book a lot and will probably read the prequel very soon.
6. Pink Leotard and Shock Collar by Juliet Cook - I loved this chapbook, too. I love pretty much all of Juliet's poetry.
7. Glass City by John Grochalski - one of my most recent reads and a change up from my usual reading. I like change sometimes.
8. Instructions from the Narwhal by Allison Titus - Another top 5 read. You are all so unlucky to not be able to go buy a copy of this chapbook as it is sold out. So very unlucky.
9. Angel Face Trailer by Juliet Cook - Juliet Cook, love love love, etc.
10. Virginia is for Lovers by Karen Lillis - great story telling in poem series form.
11. The Spare Room by Dana Guthrie Martin - A top 5-er. Dana's poetry is amazing and you should be reading it right now instead of reading my self-congratulatory list.
12. Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties by Nicole Kornher-Stace - lovely chapbook. I do enjoy good fantasy poetry and hope the Goblin Fruit girls put another one out.
13. Exit Wounds by Kevin Finn - I got back in touch with Kevin this year and read his chapbook! Yay!
14. An Introduction to the Archetypes by Susan Slaviero - Susan is another one of those poets whose books you can just assume I am going to love.
15. All the Little Red Girls by Angela Veronica Wong - my copy has tragically gone missing. Lovely, often brief, poems.
16. Fabulous Essential by Niina Pollari - I also got to (briefly) meet Niina this year!
17. At Night, the Dead by Lisa Ciccarello - haunting and extremely well-written poems.
18. Maria Sabina: Selections by Maria Sabina - Amazing amazing amazing. Go buy this book now now now. Top 5.
19. Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25 edited by Naomi Shihab Nye - I'm in it but it still counts because I read it cover to cover.
20. How to Take Yourself Apart How to Make Yourself Anew by Aaron Burch - I think I may have scared him at the AWP with my enthusiasm for all things that he does in the literary world.
21. Manatee/Humanity by Anne Waldman - I got to meet Anne Waldman at the AWP, too! I don't think I scared her...
22 & 23. 2 volumes of the Selected Works of Margaret Atwood - I do love a good Margaret Atwood poem.
24. Natural Language edited by Renee Alberts - a collection of poetry by all the poets who have read at the Carnegie Library. I'm also in this one. Renee is pretty damn awesome.
25. The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar - I read this one on the way home from NYC a few weeks ago and really need to get on my review!
I also read about a metric ton of literary journals including but not limited to;
PANK
Versal (some day they will love me as I love them)
Goblin Fruit
Pear Noir!
GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator
Pedestal Magazine
Bateau
Puerto Del Sol
Fairy Tale Review
Artifice
and many, many more.
I hope I will read even more in 2011, though I am pleased to learn that, with just what I can remember off the top of my head, I read about 2 books a month. I'm already excited to read Sally Rosen Kindred's book No Eden and all the other amazing poetry I hope I will discover.
I read a lot more books and chapbooks this year than I did last year. A lot more. Because I was editor of a literary journal last year, though, the volume of writing that I read probably went down a little bit. I'm okay with that.
Anywho - the list in no particular order and probably not completely complete!
1. Cyborgia by Susan Slaviero - one of my most recent reads and one that I am in the process of reviewing. Review preview - Buy This Book Now.
2. Soft Foam by Juliet Cook - In my top 5 reads for the year.
3. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut - My favorite book in high school. It is still awesome.
4. A Pint for the Ghost by Helen Mort - Another one that I need to finish my review of. Another amazing chapbook. I'd also put this one in my top 5.
5. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood - It may come as a surprise that before 2010 I had only read Margaret Atwood's poetry. I enjoyed this book a lot and will probably read the prequel very soon.
6. Pink Leotard and Shock Collar by Juliet Cook - I loved this chapbook, too. I love pretty much all of Juliet's poetry.
7. Glass City by John Grochalski - one of my most recent reads and a change up from my usual reading. I like change sometimes.
8. Instructions from the Narwhal by Allison Titus - Another top 5 read. You are all so unlucky to not be able to go buy a copy of this chapbook as it is sold out. So very unlucky.
9. Angel Face Trailer by Juliet Cook - Juliet Cook, love love love, etc.
10. Virginia is for Lovers by Karen Lillis - great story telling in poem series form.
11. The Spare Room by Dana Guthrie Martin - A top 5-er. Dana's poetry is amazing and you should be reading it right now instead of reading my self-congratulatory list.
12. Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties by Nicole Kornher-Stace - lovely chapbook. I do enjoy good fantasy poetry and hope the Goblin Fruit girls put another one out.
13. Exit Wounds by Kevin Finn - I got back in touch with Kevin this year and read his chapbook! Yay!
14. An Introduction to the Archetypes by Susan Slaviero - Susan is another one of those poets whose books you can just assume I am going to love.
15. All the Little Red Girls by Angela Veronica Wong - my copy has tragically gone missing. Lovely, often brief, poems.
16. Fabulous Essential by Niina Pollari - I also got to (briefly) meet Niina this year!
17. At Night, the Dead by Lisa Ciccarello - haunting and extremely well-written poems.
18. Maria Sabina: Selections by Maria Sabina - Amazing amazing amazing. Go buy this book now now now. Top 5.
19. Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25 edited by Naomi Shihab Nye - I'm in it but it still counts because I read it cover to cover.
20. How to Take Yourself Apart How to Make Yourself Anew by Aaron Burch - I think I may have scared him at the AWP with my enthusiasm for all things that he does in the literary world.
21. Manatee/Humanity by Anne Waldman - I got to meet Anne Waldman at the AWP, too! I don't think I scared her...
22 & 23. 2 volumes of the Selected Works of Margaret Atwood - I do love a good Margaret Atwood poem.
24. Natural Language edited by Renee Alberts - a collection of poetry by all the poets who have read at the Carnegie Library. I'm also in this one. Renee is pretty damn awesome.
25. The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar - I read this one on the way home from NYC a few weeks ago and really need to get on my review!
I also read about a metric ton of literary journals including but not limited to;
PANK
Versal (some day they will love me as I love them)
Goblin Fruit
Pear Noir!
GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator
Pedestal Magazine
Bateau
Puerto Del Sol
Fairy Tale Review
Artifice
and many, many more.
I hope I will read even more in 2011, though I am pleased to learn that, with just what I can remember off the top of my head, I read about 2 books a month. I'm already excited to read Sally Rosen Kindred's book No Eden and all the other amazing poetry I hope I will discover.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Micro Review - Glass City by John Grochalski
I picked this book up at about 5:20pm last Thursday and had it read by 8:00pm. How's that for speedy?
Glass City by John Grochalski (Low Ghost Press, 2010) poet, former editor of The New Yinzer, dude behind the counter at Caliban Book Shop, my favorite poetry reading host to shout obscenities at, and fellow Pittsburgher Kristofer Collins recently started up a new press venture called Low Ghost, and John Grochalski's Glass City is the second book to be published by the fledgling press. The first was Kris' own The Book of Names and I'm a bit cross with him for not being more all over the web with that information, but Kris is not as big a fan of the internet as I am, so there's that. Glass City is on the long end of what I'll read during my exercise stints coming in at 70 5x6.25 inch pages - very similar to a City Lights book. John is not a fan of the long line, so I was able to read it all aloud in a little over 40 minutes.
I would say that this book is a collection of poems about bardo, the liminal states we all find ourselves in at some point in life. In the particular case of Grochalski's narrator, he is in the in-between place of no longer feeling as though he is within his "youth", yet at the same time not wanting to take the step into what those around him seem to view as "adulthood" - children, office jobs, fancy gadgets, and a decided lack of Kerouac-esque road trips. In response, the narrator builds for himself his own waiting space - one of dingy-seeming bars, multiple bottles of wine, cheap beer, and urban wasteland where he reminisces about his life in Pittsburgh (There were a lot of Pittsburgh-location Easter eggs in this book. I got to say "I know exactly where that is!" more than a handful of times) while living in New York City, but without the desire to return to that former life and not being sure what might be the next step forward.
I have to say that from the place I'm in, personally, I sometimes found it difficult to relate to the narrator's fears. Consciously I understand them and had them myself at one point, but I kept wanting to tell the character "It's okay - I have a kid and I work in a cubicle and I'm more productive and awesome and bohemian than I ever was before I did either of those things - don't worry!"
My favorite poem in the collection, by far, was conversations with henry miller, a piece about a man the narrator sees on the subway and then proceeds to have an imaginary friendship with, complete with anecdotes such as - "rick's girlfriend would be named saffron/it would be annoying at first/but she'd be so down to earth my wife and i/would get over it". I really appreciated the realness of the relationship he builds up in his head with this person he never even speaks to, and the acknowledgement at the end of having absolutely no idea what it is to make a friend any more. These moments of self-knowledge are what shine throughout Glass City.
Thematically and tonally this was definitely a step outside of what I usually read and in many ways was a complete switch from the previous day's reading of Afterpastures by Claire Hero. That's part of what I love about chapbooks/short books and trying to set aside two or three 40-minute periods of time each week for exercising and reading - it has begun to allow me to step outside of the type of work that I am usually drawn to - this is, I believe, the 14th review I've written this year (they keep getting longer and longer. At this rate I'll have to drop the "micro" from the title soon.), and so at least the 14th short book I've read in that time. I've had to seek out chapbooks to read while exercising, and I really like where that's taken me as a reader.
So go check out Glass City and Low Ghost Press!
Glass City by John Grochalski (Low Ghost Press, 2010) poet, former editor of The New Yinzer, dude behind the counter at Caliban Book Shop, my favorite poetry reading host to shout obscenities at, and fellow Pittsburgher Kristofer Collins recently started up a new press venture called Low Ghost, and John Grochalski's Glass City is the second book to be published by the fledgling press. The first was Kris' own The Book of Names and I'm a bit cross with him for not being more all over the web with that information, but Kris is not as big a fan of the internet as I am, so there's that. Glass City is on the long end of what I'll read during my exercise stints coming in at 70 5x6.25 inch pages - very similar to a City Lights book. John is not a fan of the long line, so I was able to read it all aloud in a little over 40 minutes.
I would say that this book is a collection of poems about bardo, the liminal states we all find ourselves in at some point in life. In the particular case of Grochalski's narrator, he is in the in-between place of no longer feeling as though he is within his "youth", yet at the same time not wanting to take the step into what those around him seem to view as "adulthood" - children, office jobs, fancy gadgets, and a decided lack of Kerouac-esque road trips. In response, the narrator builds for himself his own waiting space - one of dingy-seeming bars, multiple bottles of wine, cheap beer, and urban wasteland where he reminisces about his life in Pittsburgh (There were a lot of Pittsburgh-location Easter eggs in this book. I got to say "I know exactly where that is!" more than a handful of times) while living in New York City, but without the desire to return to that former life and not being sure what might be the next step forward.
I have to say that from the place I'm in, personally, I sometimes found it difficult to relate to the narrator's fears. Consciously I understand them and had them myself at one point, but I kept wanting to tell the character "It's okay - I have a kid and I work in a cubicle and I'm more productive and awesome and bohemian than I ever was before I did either of those things - don't worry!"
My favorite poem in the collection, by far, was conversations with henry miller, a piece about a man the narrator sees on the subway and then proceeds to have an imaginary friendship with, complete with anecdotes such as - "rick's girlfriend would be named saffron/it would be annoying at first/but she'd be so down to earth my wife and i/would get over it". I really appreciated the realness of the relationship he builds up in his head with this person he never even speaks to, and the acknowledgement at the end of having absolutely no idea what it is to make a friend any more. These moments of self-knowledge are what shine throughout Glass City.
Thematically and tonally this was definitely a step outside of what I usually read and in many ways was a complete switch from the previous day's reading of Afterpastures by Claire Hero. That's part of what I love about chapbooks/short books and trying to set aside two or three 40-minute periods of time each week for exercising and reading - it has begun to allow me to step outside of the type of work that I am usually drawn to - this is, I believe, the 14th review I've written this year (they keep getting longer and longer. At this rate I'll have to drop the "micro" from the title soon.), and so at least the 14th short book I've read in that time. I've had to seek out chapbooks to read while exercising, and I really like where that's taken me as a reader.
So go check out Glass City and Low Ghost Press!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Micro Review - Afterpastures by Claire Hero
Afterpastures by Claire Hero (Caketrain, 2008) Caketrain is one of my favorite journals out there - Amanda and Joseph put together beautiful books full of lovely/weird/experimental writing, and I've never come away from an issue of Caketrain feeling let down. They also hold a chapbook contest each year, alternating between fiction and poetry, and in 2008 they published Claire Hero's Afterpastures. I read the chapbook once before when I first picked it up over a year and a half ago, and I recall feeling utterly lost on the first read-through. Not disliking the experience of being lost, per say, but being lost nonetheless. With this in mind, I selected this chapbook along with a few others to take a go at last night on my elliptical machine, reassuring myself that if I was too lost I could always just put the book down.
The first thing that struck me is that Hero's language is absolutely beautiful. She has an economy with words that I doubt I ever will, and I loved rolling each lovely one over on my tongue. There is certainly a dream-like quality to her work, a level of unrealness that perhaps tripped me up last time. In Afterpastures there is a strange and magical shifting between landscape and human body, human and wild beast, wild beast and domesticated, domesticated and wilderness, wilderness and urban landscape, and back to the human body again, each transformation crossing over into others. These themes, this transformative process, touched me this time in new ways. I loved watching the shifts and mutations of the speaker and her world throughout this book. I will say that there were still one or two places where I felt as though there was something going on that I had been left out of the loop on, but the sheer beauty of the out-of-the-loop-ness helped me drift through those spaces without frustration.
I highly recommend this chapbook, particularly if you're willing to spend some time getting to know it - it's well worth the knowing. It is presently out of print, but Caketrain often brings back books in a second printing or through free PDF versions on their website. I definitely would love to read more of Claire Hero's work (she has a full-length collection out from Noemi Press that I've linked to at her name) and am very glad I can back to Afterpastures.
Also! I am still on the lookout for more chapbooks to read and review! I've ordered a few this week, but would love suggestions for more - leave me a comment or drop me an email at myhyacinthgirl (at) gmail.com. I also have a couple full-length collections I'm working on longer reviews for, but those are longer in coming as they take longer to read and longer to write and cannot easily be finished on the elliptical machine.
Also also! Karen Lillis has added Virginia is for Lovers to her etsy shop! Yay!
The first thing that struck me is that Hero's language is absolutely beautiful. She has an economy with words that I doubt I ever will, and I loved rolling each lovely one over on my tongue. There is certainly a dream-like quality to her work, a level of unrealness that perhaps tripped me up last time. In Afterpastures there is a strange and magical shifting between landscape and human body, human and wild beast, wild beast and domesticated, domesticated and wilderness, wilderness and urban landscape, and back to the human body again, each transformation crossing over into others. These themes, this transformative process, touched me this time in new ways. I loved watching the shifts and mutations of the speaker and her world throughout this book. I will say that there were still one or two places where I felt as though there was something going on that I had been left out of the loop on, but the sheer beauty of the out-of-the-loop-ness helped me drift through those spaces without frustration.
I highly recommend this chapbook, particularly if you're willing to spend some time getting to know it - it's well worth the knowing. It is presently out of print, but Caketrain often brings back books in a second printing or through free PDF versions on their website. I definitely would love to read more of Claire Hero's work (she has a full-length collection out from Noemi Press that I've linked to at her name) and am very glad I can back to Afterpastures.
Also! I am still on the lookout for more chapbooks to read and review! I've ordered a few this week, but would love suggestions for more - leave me a comment or drop me an email at myhyacinthgirl (at) gmail.com. I also have a couple full-length collections I'm working on longer reviews for, but those are longer in coming as they take longer to read and longer to write and cannot easily be finished on the elliptical machine.
Also also! Karen Lillis has added Virginia is for Lovers to her etsy shop! Yay!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Micro Reviews
I've got 3 reviews today, mostly because I read a lot and slacked when it came to review writing. Three very different poetry chapbooks by three awesome lady writers.
Instructions from the Narwhal by Allison Titus (Bateau Press, 2007) I picked this chapbook up at Bateau Press’ table at the AWP this past year. I love the journal Bateau (it is one of the very few journals to which I always am sure to subscribe) and wanted to check out their chapbooks, all of which are selected through their annual Boom Chapbook Contest, which, I found out upon looking at their website for this review, is open right now. I believe it was Ashley Schaffer, the managing editor of Bateau, who directed me toward Instructions from the Narwhal, and for that I am in her debt. As you may or may not be aware I read these chapbooks aloud to myself while working out on my elliptical machine. I read through the entire chapbook in order (if I find myself unable to get through a poem or two I usually drop the chapbook and start on a new one) and I try not to go back and reread anything until I’ve read the whole chapbook once. Often I will reread poems silently later, but I try to base these reviews on the impression I get from these books from one straight through out loud read. This was extremely difficult with Instructions from the Narwhal, in part because the poems are complex and more interconnected and multi-layered than I think I’ve perhaps even realized yet, but mostly because they were just so goddamn good and I wanted to reread every single one as soon as I’d finished it.
The chapbook is broken up into two sections. The first is made up entirely of a series of poems with the overarching title of Instructions from the Narwhal, with subtitles for each piece. Now, in addition to being poems addressed to the audience from a pretty badass looking animal, this series of poems was absolutely lovely in that it seemed to mix magic and science, myth and history, man and nature, seamlessly and beautifully in its puzzle-like instructions. Narwhals live in cold northern waters, and a sense of the silence of ice and snow permeated this entire chapbook. Even the feelings of the words on my tongue seemed round and soft. Though there may have been a chilly melancholy to the poems, they were far from cold, and while the thread of each poem may have doubled back over on itself, twisted around, and run me through complicated sailor's knots, each poem seemed to be less a tangle, and more a complex and powerful spell. The second half of the chapbook shifted from the voice of the narwhal to the voices of men and women, but still with the chill of cold water and the silence of snow in them. In fact, it was not until the final poem in the chapbook that I felt sharp sound in the poems, like the snap after hypnotism. I don't know if I am doing a particularly good job of describing this, but I did feel as though I was discovering some soft mystery throughout Instructions from the Narwhal, and I can't wait to reread it and hopefully experience that sensation all over again. This chapbook is neck and neck with Soft Foam for my favorite read of 2010.
Angel Face Trailer by Juliet Cook w/translations into Italian by Letizia Merello (Blood Pudding Press, 2010) I've reviewed Juliet's work before, and if you've read those reviews it should come as no surprise that I greatly enjoyed Angel Face Trailer. The poems in Angel Face Trailer start out reading as a call for women to participate in the filming of what is to be a strangely sexual and exploitative film. With the eye for gross-beautiful imagery that I so appreciate in Cook's work, she describes women desired and devoured in this slim chapbook. In addition to some pretty awesome poetry, what's interesting and different about this chapbook is that Juliet's work has been translated into Italian by Letizia Merello. Now, being unable to read Italian I cannot comment on Merello's translations, but in spite of my only speaking and writing in English, I do firmly believe that poets should translate more work and read more poetry in translation. I also understand how difficult and time-consuming it is to translate poetry having worked on the translation of some Buddhist texts a couple of years ago. But whether you read Italian or not, Juliet Cook's Angel Face Trailer is definitely worth picking up - and, per Blood Pudding Press usual, it's a lovely art piece to boot.
Virginia is for Lovers by Karen Lillis (Words Like Kudzu, 2007) Virginia is for Lovers is not a collection of poems about a beloved so much as a chronicling of the beloved's absence. It is clear, in reading this collection, that Lillis is both a skilled poet and fiction writer. The poems are written in a narrative style and set up in such a way as to tell the story of a young woman, the man she falls in love with, his sudden departure, and, perhaps most prominently, her despondence at the void he has left in her life. One thing I noticed while reading this chapbook is that Lillis really has a way with endings. She knows precisely both when and how to end a poem, and I never felt like she rushed an end or tacked anything on unnecessarily. Lillis' main character falls passionately in love with a man who hops a train, and she spends the remainder of the collection trying to come to terms with what he has done - the why, the wherefore, and even the how. Each poem following his departure chronicles a way in which she experiences aloneness, though not necessarily loneliness. While a part of me wanted to see the collection end with the main character definitively "getting over" the man who abandons her, it is perhaps more honest what Lillis does - show how often, there is not a point where we turn a sharply defined corner but rather a slow process of the edges of things getting worn smooth.
Both Lillis' Virginia is for Lovers and Titus' Instructions from the Narwhal are sadly not available online at this time, and it doesn't seem that Titus' collection will be available again any time soon, which is truly a tragedy. Lillis, however, is in the process of putting together an Etsy shop for Words Like Kudzu, which I linked to the in the review, so Virginia is for Lovers might show up there!
In other news, after a bit of a dry spell I've had three poems accepted for publication in the past week! Hooray! Two will appear in New South, and the third in Barge Journal. I'm excited!
Instructions from the Narwhal by Allison Titus (Bateau Press, 2007) I picked this chapbook up at Bateau Press’ table at the AWP this past year. I love the journal Bateau (it is one of the very few journals to which I always am sure to subscribe) and wanted to check out their chapbooks, all of which are selected through their annual Boom Chapbook Contest, which, I found out upon looking at their website for this review, is open right now. I believe it was Ashley Schaffer, the managing editor of Bateau, who directed me toward Instructions from the Narwhal, and for that I am in her debt. As you may or may not be aware I read these chapbooks aloud to myself while working out on my elliptical machine. I read through the entire chapbook in order (if I find myself unable to get through a poem or two I usually drop the chapbook and start on a new one) and I try not to go back and reread anything until I’ve read the whole chapbook once. Often I will reread poems silently later, but I try to base these reviews on the impression I get from these books from one straight through out loud read. This was extremely difficult with Instructions from the Narwhal, in part because the poems are complex and more interconnected and multi-layered than I think I’ve perhaps even realized yet, but mostly because they were just so goddamn good and I wanted to reread every single one as soon as I’d finished it.
The chapbook is broken up into two sections. The first is made up entirely of a series of poems with the overarching title of Instructions from the Narwhal, with subtitles for each piece. Now, in addition to being poems addressed to the audience from a pretty badass looking animal, this series of poems was absolutely lovely in that it seemed to mix magic and science, myth and history, man and nature, seamlessly and beautifully in its puzzle-like instructions. Narwhals live in cold northern waters, and a sense of the silence of ice and snow permeated this entire chapbook. Even the feelings of the words on my tongue seemed round and soft. Though there may have been a chilly melancholy to the poems, they were far from cold, and while the thread of each poem may have doubled back over on itself, twisted around, and run me through complicated sailor's knots, each poem seemed to be less a tangle, and more a complex and powerful spell. The second half of the chapbook shifted from the voice of the narwhal to the voices of men and women, but still with the chill of cold water and the silence of snow in them. In fact, it was not until the final poem in the chapbook that I felt sharp sound in the poems, like the snap after hypnotism. I don't know if I am doing a particularly good job of describing this, but I did feel as though I was discovering some soft mystery throughout Instructions from the Narwhal, and I can't wait to reread it and hopefully experience that sensation all over again. This chapbook is neck and neck with Soft Foam for my favorite read of 2010.
Angel Face Trailer by Juliet Cook w/translations into Italian by Letizia Merello (Blood Pudding Press, 2010) I've reviewed Juliet's work before, and if you've read those reviews it should come as no surprise that I greatly enjoyed Angel Face Trailer. The poems in Angel Face Trailer start out reading as a call for women to participate in the filming of what is to be a strangely sexual and exploitative film. With the eye for gross-beautiful imagery that I so appreciate in Cook's work, she describes women desired and devoured in this slim chapbook. In addition to some pretty awesome poetry, what's interesting and different about this chapbook is that Juliet's work has been translated into Italian by Letizia Merello. Now, being unable to read Italian I cannot comment on Merello's translations, but in spite of my only speaking and writing in English, I do firmly believe that poets should translate more work and read more poetry in translation. I also understand how difficult and time-consuming it is to translate poetry having worked on the translation of some Buddhist texts a couple of years ago. But whether you read Italian or not, Juliet Cook's Angel Face Trailer is definitely worth picking up - and, per Blood Pudding Press usual, it's a lovely art piece to boot.
Virginia is for Lovers by Karen Lillis (Words Like Kudzu, 2007) Virginia is for Lovers is not a collection of poems about a beloved so much as a chronicling of the beloved's absence. It is clear, in reading this collection, that Lillis is both a skilled poet and fiction writer. The poems are written in a narrative style and set up in such a way as to tell the story of a young woman, the man she falls in love with, his sudden departure, and, perhaps most prominently, her despondence at the void he has left in her life. One thing I noticed while reading this chapbook is that Lillis really has a way with endings. She knows precisely both when and how to end a poem, and I never felt like she rushed an end or tacked anything on unnecessarily. Lillis' main character falls passionately in love with a man who hops a train, and she spends the remainder of the collection trying to come to terms with what he has done - the why, the wherefore, and even the how. Each poem following his departure chronicles a way in which she experiences aloneness, though not necessarily loneliness. While a part of me wanted to see the collection end with the main character definitively "getting over" the man who abandons her, it is perhaps more honest what Lillis does - show how often, there is not a point where we turn a sharply defined corner but rather a slow process of the edges of things getting worn smooth.
Both Lillis' Virginia is for Lovers and Titus' Instructions from the Narwhal are sadly not available online at this time, and it doesn't seem that Titus' collection will be available again any time soon, which is truly a tragedy. Lillis, however, is in the process of putting together an Etsy shop for Words Like Kudzu, which I linked to the in the review, so Virginia is for Lovers might show up there!
In other news, after a bit of a dry spell I've had three poems accepted for publication in the past week! Hooray! Two will appear in New South, and the third in Barge Journal. I'm excited!
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