Tag: april

“Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years…”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Young, Dean. “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years / Almost Everyone Left Before Me.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 50-51.

Just the title of the poem alone had me scratching my head. Where was this place? This place someone lived for nearly 23 years? At first (logical) thought, childhood home. Many people do not venture from the nest immediately after turning 18. Later, after I read the poem more than once I thought commune. Definitely some sort of hazy, free-love commune where drugs and music are involved. Still later I wondered if I was trying too hard to decipher something that didn’t need such analysis. I mean, how can one respond to the line, “When I told Scoot my father died, he told me he was gay. A trade? Yes but no” (p 50 -51). There is no real flirty funny in this and yet I was amused all the same.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p138).

Alice Springs

gr4c5Leave a comment

Gemmell, Nikki. Alice Springs. New York: Viking, 1999.

If you have ever read The Bean Trees or Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver you might be reminded of Taylor Greer when you read Nikki Gemmell’s Alice Springs. There are definite similarities between Taylor Greer and Phillipa “Snip” Freeman, the heroine of Alice Springs. For starters, both characters are fiercely independent; both have a wanderer spirit and a devil-may-care attitude about what anyone thinks of them. Neither of them can commit to a love interest. But, Snip is older, and takes more risks with relationships and sex than Taylor does. Snip rules her world with her body. She is used to loving and leaving the men she meets.

It is after her grandmother’s death that we first meet Snip. She has been given an inheritance check with the three word  instruction “hunt him down.” Snip knows the him is her father and hunting him down will be the easy part, for he isn’t hiding. It’s the why that has Snip puzzled. What is she supposed to do once the hunted has been successfully hunted? To get to her father, Bud, Snip travels to the Aboriginal  outback. Along the way Snip takes a traveling companion who gets under her skin more than she expects.Then, a surprising thing happens. The longer Snip stays rooted in one place the more she is exposed to the powers of belonging somewhere.

Gemmell writes like the ocean. The words flow with rhythmic intensity, pounding with violence, soothing with consistency. The storyline is liquid and slippery; it washes over you again and again.

Favorite lines (and there were a few): “No-one gets under her skin like her mother does, no-one hits on half-truths like her” (p 70) and “Some kids vanish from their parents’ lives , to rattle them into noticing” (p 120).

Author Fact: Gemmell anonymously wrote the erotic book The Bride Stripped Bare but claimed it as her own right before publication.

Book Trivia: On Gemmell’s website Alice Springs is explained as a novel that was born not with character or plot in mind, but with a place. I like that imagery a lot. In Australia Alice Springs was published under the name Cleve.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Australian Fiction” (p 29). Simple enough.

“Blue Garden”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Young, Dean. “Blue Garden.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 18-19.

At first reading, “Blue Garden” seemed nothing more than an admonishment to the reader about what a poem should and shouldn’t be. Upon closer evaluation the interpretation falls away and the potential for something completely different is revealed. It all seems up to you. And yet. Yet, it comes back to words and seems to be about the words. What works for a word and what doesn’t. Imagery follows the lines like a movie, linked to the psyche. Powerful stuff. My favorite part was, “Never put an eclair in a suitcase or a poem” (p 19). It made me laugh and feel a certain sense of sadness all at once.What can’t you put an eclair into a poem, I’d like to know!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry (p 139).

“At Marlborough House”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Swift, Michael. “At Marlborough House.” The New Yorker June 18th, 1990: 40.

This poem is loaded with details; details easily visualized into a short story. There are little shockers peppered throughout the entire poem told from the point of view of a patient at Marlborough House. Imagine: it is early afternoon and the patients of a psychiatric hospital are languishing in their rooms awaiting nurses with medication. There are a host of characters besides the patients – Jake the gardener and Dr. Levitz, the man in charge, but it’s the speaker of the poem you want to know more about. You snatch details, more like hints, in the things he says. He is male, old enough to still have parents who visit. He likes to read, knows pop cultural references and has homosexual tendencies. He is smart and funny and sarcastic. You want to ignore his suicidal thoughts.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188). Incidentally, Pearl called this poem “mysterious.”

Postscript ~ Every April I think the same thing. It is really unfair of Nancy Pearl to list poems she recommends for reading without proper citations. From what I can tell “At Marlborough House” was never published in a book. I found it tucked away in a 1990 New Yorker magazine. It might well have been the only place it was published. Here are the tags I would have used on LibraryThing: mental illness, hospital, first person, homosexuality, poetry, librarian, doctor, sex, paranoia, alcohol, suicidal, sarcastic”

House of Blue Light

gr4c52 Comments

Kirby, David. The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

It’s really hard to call this book a book of poetry. Each poem reads like a short story full of interesting characters and plots. In one 77 page book the reader is transported across countries and cultures. It has been said that House of Blue Light is autobiographical. For example Kirby’s characters mention a Barbara and Kirby is indeed married to a woman named Barbara Hamby. I do not know if she is the same Barbara of House of Blue Light’s poetry. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Regardless, Kirby’s poetry is funny, situationally (my word) real, and intensely soulful. In a word, substantial; this was poetry I could sink my teeth into and actually taste something.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“Two Tramps in Mud Time”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Frost, Robert. “Two Tramps in Mud Time.” Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. New York: Library of America, 1984. pp 251-252.

Too many people have tried to analyze Frost’s poem, “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” giving me license to not even try.  Long, rambling, didactic essays have been written explaining Frost’s position on charity, society, and the psychological differences between need versus want. I will refrain. Instead I will look at the poem for what it meant to me. At first blush I took the poem personally. The words “mud time” in the title made me think of Monhegan. We have a whole season dedicated to muck and mire and mud – early spring when everything is thawing more quickly than the sun can dry up. This runoff of excessive, exuberant water creates deep, thick, oozing traps of mud. The kind of mud you sink 4-5″ inches in; strong enough to suck a man’s Bean boot right off his foot.
Then, there is Frost’s description of a fickle spring. I can relate. Here it is, a week into spring and we have a snow storm on our doorstep. April Fools we are for living in New England. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute – as they say.

Another aspect of “Two Tramps in Mud Time” that I took to heart is the concept of loving your work so much that work is not the operative word to describe your actions. The narrator is chopping wood. Not because it is a necessity – winter is over. It is April and presumably he wouldn’t need to light another fire again until fall. No. He enjoys the physical labor of chopping wood. Love what you do. Do what you love. It’s something my father has (countless times) drummed into my head. But, along come two unemployed tramps, looking to take the narrator’s work away from him. They need the work whereas the narrator wants the work. Herein lies the psychological babble about questioning obligation, confronting humanity with charity.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the introduction (p xi).

Bear Went Over the Mountain

gr4c5Leave a comment

Kotzwinkle, William. The Bear Went Over the Mountain. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

If you remembered I had already tried a Kotzwinkle book and failed, kudos to you. Because I didn’t. At first glance I thought The Bear Went Over the Mountain was a book for kids. The cover sure looked that way and the plot definitely looked that way. I should have known this was something I wasn’t going to be able to wrap my brain around. Call me rigid. Call me StickIntheMud, but I really, really couldn’t enjoy The Bear Went Over the Mountain because I have no ability to half suspend belief.

Here’s the premise: Miserable University of Maine professor, Arthur Bramhall, has written a book he hopes will save him from teaching ever again. He thinks the manuscript is a winner and will make him millions. Unfortunately, the story goes up in flames when his secluded farmhouse goes up in flames. Never mind. He rewrites it practically word for word only this time it’s better. In order to avoid another book ablaze he hides it in a briefcase under a tree…only to have a bear steal it. The bear reads the manuscript and knows a good story when he sees it. He travels to New York to hawk the book and ends up making movie deals and having sex with humans. While the bear (Hal Jam) becomes more human, the professor (Arthur Bramhall) becomes more animal after the loss of his manuscript.

I will admit The Bear Went Over the Mountain solicited a giggle here and there but for the most part I found myself scolding the stupid humans for not being able to recognize a bear wearing pants and a clip-on tie.

Author Fact: William Kotzwinkle lives on a island off the coast of Maine, according to the inside flap of The Bear Went Over the Mountain. All I know is that island isn’t Monhegan.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter simply called “Humor” (p 116) and again, in “My Own Private Dui” (p 165) another chapter in Book Lust.

“Exorcist of Notre-Dame”

gr4c52 Comments

Kirby, David. “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. pp 75-77.

This poem made me sad. Maybe it’s because the narrator wants to talk to an exorcist about seeing someone who reminded him of his dead dad. Maybe it’s because the narrator doesn’t speak French so even if he wanted to he wouldn’t be able to communicate effectively with the exorcist. So, technically, there are two different disappointments at play here – missing one’s father and the inability to communicate. I can relate to both but connect on a deeper level with the loss of a father. There is a little reprieve from the sadness when the narrator imagines the exorcist trying to describe him: “a stuttering sort of spastic hillbilly zombie hayseed type person” (p 77).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Flint’s Law

gr4c5Leave a comment

Eddy, Paul. Flint’s Law. New York: G.P. Putnam, 2002.

The first thing one needs to understand about Flint’s Law is that it is a continuation of Paul Eddy’s Flint but, really, it is not necessary to read Flint before Flint’s Law. Eddy does a great job hand-holding the reader through details carried over from Flint. However, I’ll admit, it is my opinion that Flint’s Law is far more enjoyable with the details of Flint already in the memory bank.

Flint is Grace Flint and she is spunky, rebellious, and a little unethical as an undercover agent. Like the opening to Flint, Flint’s Law opens with an undercover sting operation going wrong. Only this time someone else is paying the price for the blunder and to all concerned, it’s Grace’s fault. The failed sting leads everyone to believe there is a leak and somehow Grace is involved. In order to clear her name, keep her job, and seek revenge, Grace must put aside any trust she has for those in her inner circle. Anyone and everyone are now suspect. As usual Eddy takes us on a multi-country journey: Croatia, France, Germany to name a few. As usual the plot is complicated (with over 30 different characters mentioned by name it is hard to keep them all straight). As usual, Grace compels us to keep reading to find out what happens next.

This book produces more questions than it does answers. Consider this: When we leave Grace in Flint’s Law Grace knows she is pregnant, her arch enemy has gotten away (again), and she has left her husband for dead somewhere, floating, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. What will Grace do about the baby? Her lifestyle hardly allows for motherhood and let’s face it, Grace isn’t all that nurturing. What will become of Grace’s elusive enemy? Will he haunt her for the rest of her life? And, what of that sea-stranded husband? No one saw him drown so did he really die? Finally, the biggest mystery of all, carried over from Flint – who killed Grace’s mom? Guess I’ll have to read Flint’s Code to find out!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Action Heroines” (p 6).

April ’10 was…

gr4c5Leave a comment

April was that kind of month that just flew by without warning. When Just’ Cause is over I will get back to writing in the real sense… for now here is the literary month of April.

For books it was:

  • Affliction by Russell Banks ~ can’t wait to see the movie
  • Belshazzar’s Daughter by Barbara Nadel ~ speaking of movies, this should be one
  • Truth & Bright Water by Thomas King ~ probably my second favorite read of the month
  • South Wind Through the Kitchen by Elizabeth David ~ a collection of “best of” Elizabeth David
  • Without End by Adam Zagajewski ~ a collection of poetry
  • Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian ~ my favorite read of the month

For poetry it was:

  • “Luncheon on the Grass” by Carl Phillips (In the Blood, 1993.)
  • “Rebus” by Jane Hirschfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt, 2002.)
  • “Hospital” by Karl Shapiro (Poems: 1040-1953, 1953.)
  • “A Secret Life” by Stephen Dunn (Landscape at the End of the Century, 1999.)
  • “The Welcoming” by Edward Hirsch (Earthly Measures, 1994.)
  • “Prophet” by Carl Dennis (Practical Gods, 2001.)
  • “Funeral II” by — (New & Collected Poems, 2000.)
  • “Days of Pie and Coffee” by — (Shroud of the Gnome, 1997.)
  • “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski (Without End, 2002)
  • “Kaddish” by Allen Ginsberg (Kaddish and Other Poems 1958 – 1960, 2001)
  • “Wisdom of the Desert Fathers” by Katha Pollitt (the mind- body problem, 2009)
  • “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins (Sailing Alone Around the Room, 2002)

For poetry set to music it was Natalie Merchant’s long awaited Leave Your Sleep. This is the track listing for the fantastically amazing album:

Part I

  1. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience by Charles Causley
  2. Equestrienne by Rachel Field
  3. Calico Pie by Edward Lear
  4. Bleezer’s Ice-Cream by Jack Prelutsky
  5. It Makes a Change by Mervyn Peak
  6. The King of China’s Daughter by Anonymous
  7. The Dancing Bear by Albert Bigelow Paine
  8. The Man in the Wilderness by Mother Goose
  9. maggie and milly and molly and may by E.E. Cummings
  10. If No One Ever Marries Me by Laurence Alma-Tadema
  11. The Sleepy Giant by Charles Edward Carryl
  12. The Peppery Man by Arthur Macy
  13. The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe

Part II

  1. Adventures of Isabel by Ogden Nash
  2. The Walloping Window Blind by Charles Edward Carryl
  3. Topsyturvey World by William Brighty Rands
  4. The Janitor’s Boy by Nathalia Crane
  5. Griselda by Eleanor Farjeon
  6. The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson
  7. Vain and Careless by Robert Graves
  8. Crying, My Little One by Christina Rossetti
  9. Sweet and a Lullaby by Anonymous
  10. I Saw a Ship A-Sailing by Anonymous
  11. Autumn Lullaby by Anonymous
  12. Spring and Fall: to a young child by Gerard Manley Hopkins
  13. Indian Names by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program it was: a browse through a weight training book. Full review coming next month…

For fun it was: The Book of Calamities by Peter Trachtenberg

The Book of Calamities

gr4c5Leave a comment

Trachtenberg, Peter. The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning. New York: Little, Brown & co., 2008

This was an off-list addition. Glutton for punishment? Maybe. April had already been a hard month and here I am, deciding to add to the drama by deciding to read a book about suffering. It’s perverse but I find comfort in my little, uneventful life when I am reminded of fates worse than mine…much, much worse than mine. It’s the same reason why I watch ugly shows about murder and drug addiction. It’s my constant reminder that anyone, at anytime, can fall from grace. And fall hard.

But, anyway, back to Calamities. I will be honest. I picked up the book after reading a dedication. After researching the recipients I realized I needed to know more. It wasn’t enough to be aware and move on. I wanted knowledge. Who were these people and why did they die? Notice I didn’t say how? That much was obvious. Their tragedy deserved more than two seconds of my time. Which led me to Peter Trachtenberg’s book.

The Book of Calamities covers man-induced sufferings as well as the ones seemingly without explanation. The answer to each catastrophe lies in simple words like religion, nature, sanity, hatred, illness but try explaining those words beyond dictionary etymology and terminology. What exactly IS hatred? What drives two religions to war? How can Mother Nature be so cruel to the ignorant? Who defines mental illness and calls it insanity? These are hard questions but, Trachtenberg asks an even bigger question – why is suffering such a shock to us? It happens all the time. It happens everywhere. Why aren’t we more prepared for catastrophe? Is it a cultural thing? For some reason we, as a society,  have this sense of entitlement to happiness; this sense of denial that bad things always happen to someone, anyone, else but us. Not so.

I didn’t have favorite quotes in this book, but there was one particular event that stood out. Here is the quote: “The first thing they did for me was to make me stop, kindly, with care not to make me feel any more foolish than I already felt, for who feels more foolish than a failed suicide?” (p 95). The reason why this passage stood out to me is this – in my friend’s suicide note he made reference to being embarrassed by possible failure. He understood suffering and didn’t want to make compromises to accommodate that suffering. Here’s the thing – he didn’t need to be embarrassed. He didn’t fail on May 10th, 1993.

“Funeral II”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Szymborska, Wislawa. “Funeral II.” New and Collected Poems. New York: Mariner Books, 2000. p 206.

This poem disturbed me to the core. To read it quite literally it is people standing around before (or after, or anytime in between) a funeral and gossiping. This sort of thing happens all the time. Events like funerals and weddings bring people together. Conversations are bound to happen, especially when people haven’t seen each other since the last milestone – wedding, or funeral…
I think what disturbed me the most is that I could identify with it so readily. I, too, have stood around making small talk; commenting on the people strangers around me. Call it catty. Call it human nature. It happens.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

Water Witches

gr4c5Leave a comment

Bohjalian, Chris. Water Witches. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1995.

This is the story of environmentalists against developers. The storyline is simple. A Vermont ski resort needs to expand in order to stay in business. They are looking to clear trees and tap into a river in order to build more ski trails and man-made snow. That means obtaining permits and permissions. For lawyer Scottie Winston, working for Powder Peak, this means more jobs for the community…or so he says over and over again. Is he trying to convince himself? The trouble is Scottie is married to a water witch with minimal skills. More so, his sister-in-law is considered the most talented dowser in the country. Her abilities to find water, and even missing travelers is legendary. She is marrying the region’s most vocal environmentalist who opposes Powder Peak’s expansion. To make matters worse, Scottie’s own daughter is proving to be an even more accomplished water witch than her aunt…Scottie must chose between his job and his family especially when a drought complicates things not only for Powder Peak but for the entire community.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Ecofiction” (p 77).

Note: this review is lame because somehow I lost the one I thought I had already written….I didn’t have the energy to write it twice.

“Forgetfulness”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Collins, Billy. “Forgetfulness.” Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poetry. New York: Random House: 2002. 29.

You know that point in a conversation when someone says something so true and indisputable all you can do is nod in emphatic agreement? “Forgetfulness” is that point in the conversation. How many of us read something, whether it be an article, book or poem and couldn’t remember who wrote it a week later? A week after that and now we can’t remember the title of what we read. We find ourselves saying stupid things like, “I read this great book about the tenth largest island in the world by…by..oh what was his name? Anyway, it was really interesting.” I also like Billy’s imagery of a brain making room for something else to remember. When a new address or phone number is added to the brain, the author or title of a book must come out. For every new piece of information stored, something older must come out and slip away. Who knows where it goes? Billy has the answer:
“…to a little fishing village where there are no phone lines” (p 29).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Without End

gr4c5Leave a comment

Zagajewski, Adam. Without End: New and Selected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.

Nancy Pearl mentions “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” in Book Lust in the chapter called, “Polish Poems and Prose” (p 187), but she also recommends the book from which the poem is from, Without End: New and Selected Poems.

I quite enjoyed reading Without End from start to finish. The diversity of poetry within the 270+ pages is refreshing. I especially liked the poet to poet dedications. It’s as if Zagajewski is saying, “from one writer to another, I feel your craft and it influences mine.”

“Try to Praise the Mutilated World” reminds me of Natalie Merchant’s song “Life is Sweet” in that they both try to point out the beauty in the world in spite of the glaring ugliness.

Favorite lines:
“The innkeeper’s daughter was so thin
that she kept bricks in her backpack to outwit the wind…” (p14).

Favorite poem: “Treatise on Emptiness”
A friend and I both agree that this poem moved us in startling and profound ways.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Polish Poems and Prose” (p 187). Yeah, I know I already said that.