tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11594222889393610942024-02-08T07:30:05.541-06:00The Reading GaolNot as profound as it should be; but not achingly dramatic either... just a commonplace reader.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-27327688940902895752012-04-06T12:05:00.002-05:002012-04-06T12:06:55.105-05:00Megan Hall, Fourth ChildMegan Hall's Fourth Child is a deeply intimate collection without being showily confessional or maudlin. And this is its great strength.
There is a quiet power to many of the poems, though few measure up to the punch carried in the second poem in the collection, "Gunshot", which actually led me to set the book down and say, out loud, "Wow... wow." The reader is led by Hall through a Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-72769627535792298822012-04-02T20:28:00.000-05:002012-04-13T14:09:09.032-05:00Melissa Butler, RemovingTwo days into my reading for National Poetry Month -- only two days in, I should emphasize -- but I worry I am becoming a bit of a curmudgeon. Why? Because I have yet to be swept away.
That's putting an awful burden on these poets, I know.
Melissa Butler's collection, Removing, comes close but never quite carries me over. There are poems where I've scrawled notes to myself, "does it work?" (andAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-41468422342273273122012-04-01T20:50:00.001-05:002012-04-07T12:48:00.553-05:00Francis B Nyamnjoh, PredicamentsI learned a lesson some time ago: never read the introduction to a novel or book of verse prior to reading the book itself. I had one too many books ruined for me by awful introductions.
Whether that's stood me in good stead or bad is an open question; though on the whole I think it's greatly benefited the pleasure I've taken in my reading.
In the case of Francis B Nyamnjoh's, Predicaments, Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-89475633887022785842011-12-22T06:06:00.000-06:002011-12-22T06:06:26.204-06:00Rae Armantrout, VersedI don't get it.
I mean... I don't pretend to understand most / a lot / much of contemporary verse, American or otherwise, but... I try. And while understanding might often keep me at arm's length I can usually find considerable appreciation and pleasure -- even if only in moments.
Rae Armantrout's Pulitzer Prize (2010) winning collection, Versed, left me more perplexed than anything else. I Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-69133127485836395582011-11-22T08:22:00.001-06:002011-12-22T05:46:24.119-06:00Hitting the reset button...Well, it all seems to have gotten to be a little much for me -- this whole reading and then writing thing. Even the little slips of nothing that I would, though in later days only sporadically (at best!!), scratch out.
So I'm hitting the reset button.
The stacks and stacks of read volumes that were waiting to be "reviewed" here? All shuffled off to the basement. Prospects for future reviews? Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-30424162758594207012011-01-08T14:36:00.000-06:002011-01-08T14:36:42.308-06:00Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973I'm sure I've written before that I get these "moments" when what I want to read is a little Bukowski. To be honest, it's not just any Bukowski, but that full-throated, whoring, drinking, loud-mouthed, unapologetic sonofabitch classical music aficionado that Bukowski fans... love? Much like the women he writes about love him. Right?
Right.
I suppose.
Such was the case recently. And so I Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-75556053877125392492010-08-08T13:04:00.003-05:002011-01-08T13:12:58.391-06:00Hummingbird: Magazine of the Short Poem 20.2 (March 2010)Usually I gobble these up within days of arriving. It's something I can read quickly, in those little eruptions of time when I feel unmoved and unstressed by... well, anything else. And there is usually pleasure in it. Little pleasures, but at least a smile.
Perhaps it was the long delay between arrival and reading. Perhaps I'm just growing weary: cynicism snuffing out wonder. But I can feel theAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-80439132543343886062010-05-09T14:31:00.000-05:002010-05-09T14:31:01.607-05:00Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers At LastThere's a certain campy punch to much of Bukowski that I really enjoy. I don't think it's necessarily intended, but's how I find myself reading it often; and many times it's why I pick up Bukowski.
This was such a time.
And The People Look Like Flowers At Last didn't disappoint.
There was an oddly reflective, surrealistically-tinged opening that worried me at first, but the collection settles Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-87059037141805624162010-03-13T06:13:00.001-06:002010-03-13T06:18:55.756-06:00Jeffrey Brown, Sulk, Issue 2: Deadly AwesomeI enjoy Jeffrey Brown's work. And these "issues" of Sulk that he produces are fun little distractions. I picked up issue two despite the fact that it's about mixed martial arts, something I have no taste for or interest in.
For me this is nothing more than a light entertainment, a diversion. Or potentially so. It never quite lives up to it's description: "Jeffrey Brown explores the world Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-69368420560098754232010-02-11T21:17:00.001-06:002010-02-12T06:26:58.176-06:00Robert Berold, All the DaysIt took me a while to warm to Robert Berold's All My Days. More than a while, in fact. Well, actually, it took something of a gap between readings.
All My Days is a slim book, as most collections are. And I like to read these things, if I can, in one single push. It gives me, it seems, a better sense of the poet, of the rhythm, of the style and voice. If the poetry is done well, I'm caught up, Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-75120881332922922512010-01-24T12:24:00.006-06:002010-01-24T19:48:11.608-06:00Philip Roth, The HumblingWhat a thoroughly, frighteningly unhappy book.Or is it just me?Perhaps, with The Humbling, I've read too much Philip Roth. Or not enough of his early works. Something.Maybe I'm becoming too much of a moralist -- the death-rattle of the critic -- but it all seemed rather sordid. But even worse, as far as the novel (as a form) is concerned: rushed and unmoored.Which is, of course, a large part of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-85443650167120183802010-01-18T07:47:00.004-06:002010-02-01T12:51:30.899-06:00Gail Dendy, People CrossingI had the pleasure of meeting Gail Dendy during my trip to South Africa last year. Right at the tail end of the trip, quite literally (and lamentedly, as she was a delight and the conversation over lunch a real pleasure): when we finished eating she put me on a shuttle for the airport.People Crossing is Dendy's second collection, and is probably a stronger than the usual sophomore effort. There Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-79516729863569107152010-01-16T14:10:00.003-06:002010-01-22T14:49:13.967-06:00Dino Buzzati, Poem Strip including An Explanation of the AfterlifeI just don't get it I guess...Dino Buzzati's Poem Strip is... well... a paean to school boy fantasies? A mushy graphic amalgam of the detritus of 1960s psychedelic (soon to be arena) rock music? A whole lot of tit and ass?It's all of those things. And apparently it's avant garde and "a dark and alluring investigation into mysteries of love, lust, sex, and death" (if the back of the book is to be Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-2051247154941278062009-11-24T05:31:00.006-06:002009-11-25T09:40:12.260-06:00Dexter Filkins, The Forever WarThe war reading continues... unending... forever?And I'm worn out.But I can also say that Dexter Filkins' The Forever War is an amazing book. A stunner. A sometimes viscerally shaking book; rattling but never confusing. The numerous laudatory reviews are spot on, and the awards are well-earned.There is little I can add other than to encourage you to read this book. I'd demand you do so if I Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-26049387671781755682009-10-16T04:22:00.003-05:002009-10-16T05:10:06.838-05:00Wilbur Smith, Gold MineI feel a little... not dirty, but... I dunno. I simply don't seem to be a reader of action/adventure -- odd for a boy who cut his teeth on science fiction and fantasy growing up. I've been trying my hand at it lately, reading those works centered in Africa (that's my excuse, my justification: literary policing).Gold Mine is my second Wilbur Smith book. Sigh...Even after just two -- and this is Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-13812872831575698682009-10-10T01:35:00.003-05:002009-10-11T15:35:10.507-05:00John Waller, The Dancing PlagueI was profoundly disappointed in The Dancing Plague, though to be fair that probably has as much to do with my own sky high expectations for it as with the work itself.Well...You see, every once in awhile I get this heady urge to read something of the Middle Ages. Not historical fiction, but history, biography, something to give me a little taste, a little hint of what life might have been like. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-19445804833521263032009-09-19T11:20:00.003-05:002010-02-12T06:27:24.467-06:00Hummingbird: Magazine of the Short Poem 20.1 (September 2009)Down to 2 issues a year, unfortunately (but understandably).
Still available for $5/issue from:
Phyllis Walsh, Editor
Hummingbird
Harbour Village
5600 Mockingbird Lane, Apt D103
Greendale, WI 53129Worth it on the whole, if only because it's such an interesting little magazine (and I do mean little) of very short verse. A curiosity, perhaps, but a fun one. A bit earnest this time around (perhaps Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-63630312491581609012009-09-19T07:11:00.004-05:002010-02-01T12:51:40.541-06:00Sammy Oke Akombi, Beware the DrivesBeware the Drives is one of the poetry collections I was able to pick up at this year's African Literature Association conference, held in Burlington, Vermont. Exciting for me as it heralds the emergence of what is to me a new publishing house in Cameroon: Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group (distributed in the US & Europe by the marvelous African Books Collective).The bookAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-54957825920523980882009-09-19T06:12:00.003-05:002009-09-19T20:43:05.498-05:00Simon Armitage, KidArmitage seemed like a "hot item" when I picked up this collection, Kid, at one of our local Half Price Books for... a dollar.Yup. A buck. You'd think they'd wring a little more blood from the stone of the next big thing, wouldn't you?!?But there it was, and Armitage -- who isn't so new -- seemed to be popping up into my consciousness with some regularity. Readings in Stevens Point (??) sponsoredAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-40007747572423860142009-09-19T05:24:00.003-05:002009-09-22T09:17:17.537-05:00Alec Russell, Bring Me My Machine GunSubtitled, "The Battle for the Soul of South Africa from Mandela to Zuma", Russell's Bring Me My Machine Gun is an excellent account of, largely, the South Africa political landscape since the demise of state-sanctioned apartheid and the election of Mandela.The subtitle is a bit more portentous than the actual work itself. More than anything Russell is detailing the political machinations of the Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-76968830853525701772009-08-15T07:28:00.007-05:002009-08-17T19:13:11.050-05:00Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog From HellPerhaps I should have found something a little more... celebratory (perhaps?) coming off my time in Stalingrad. Still, there was a striking -- if fleeting (and slightly perverse) -- nod to the Eastern Front:this time has finished me.I feel like the German troopswhipped by snow and the communistswalking bentwith newspapers stuffed intoworn boots.my plight is just as terrible.maybe more so.victory Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-42680015310651502872009-08-11T07:28:00.002-05:002009-08-11T08:55:43.528-05:00Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943Jesus...I was drawn to Beevor's history of the World War II siege of Stalingrad by the glowing reviews I'd read of his forthcoming history of the D-Day invasions.Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 is an amazing, jaw-dropping, and horrific history of one of the turning points of the war in Europe. The chronicle of brutality -- of the Nazi push into the Soviet Union, the Soviet push back westAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-16291274179770037462009-08-01T08:24:00.004-05:002009-09-30T07:56:32.461-05:00Edward Miguel, Africa's Turn?This is the second Boston Review book read. In a row. Miguel's Africa's Turn? summarizes fairly standard thinking on the "African" economic situation (mirrored in a recent New York Times article, "Just When Africa's Luck Was Changing"). Thankfully, Miguel and the various contributors -- and the book itself is made up of an extended introduction by Miguel followed by 9 brief essays by contributorsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-13240044660875384182009-05-19T06:46:00.004-05:002009-05-19T10:21:30.772-05:00Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to DieNot really one for the mystery/thriller genre -- not from any determined prejudice (hey, my mom's a big mystery reader), but... just never lit me up (similar to never having been taken by horror films is the way I look at it) -- but this one caught my eye and has an African connection, so...A Beautiful Place to Die reads like it's begging to be filmed. Which isn't surprising considering the Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1159422288939361094.post-75300509209417098202009-04-26T06:11:00.005-05:002010-02-01T12:51:49.883-06:00Kofi Anyidoho, PraiseSong for TheLandIt pains me to write this, but I was unimpressed by Anyidoho's PraiseSong for TheLand.Perhaps it is the reading from the page that is lacking. But they feel... unoriginal. There's little spark, few memorable lines or images that haven't been presented more forcefully, movingly, elsewhere (and in some instances, by Anyidoho himself).To get an idea of the true power -- the potential -- of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16172639665290272629noreply@blogger.com0