A Good Read

Page updated 3/25/2004
MEMBERS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT A BOOK RECOMMENDATION OR A BOOK REVIEW!

To submit poetry book remarks or a "how-to" writing book recommendation, write to Mary Margaret Carlisle, Managing Editor.  Include author, publisher, book title, when the book was published, plus your comments.  Send to:  Sol.Magazine@prodigy.net

To submit a poetry book review, write to Mary Margaret Carlisle, Managing Editor, with your proposal.  Include author, publisher, book title, when the book was published, and your brief biography.   Send to:  Sol.Editor@prodigy.net

NOTE:  We do not publish reviews of political or religious books, or of books that use graphic or scatological language.

Contents




MARCH 2004
A GOOD READ:

Axe Against An Elm/Covenant Songs, by Jack Lewis
reviewed by Paula M. Bentley, Editor-in-Chief.

It is a rarity in today's world to find a style of writing which exists solely for the purpose of self-birthing, to bring a new thought or idea to the world we live in.  That is the sort of writing propagated by Jack Lewis in Axe Against An Elm/Covenant Songs, a book of selected poetry from the confessional school of thought.

By revealing far more than he obscures, yet making us believe he wants to conceal more than he discloses, Mr. Lewis gives the reader the impression of a reluctant opening of the mind and heart, and a sense of illicit glimpses into a deeper psyche.  His poetry is true, keen in its cathartic lines, yet each word is chosen precisely.  Nothing is wasted.

Mr. Lewis demonstrates a surprising range of motion, and moves swiftly and easily from short breaths of poems to longer narratives.  He addresses such seemingly innocent topics as dyeing one's hair ("Lately I think a lot about dying / my hair, / Returning to the dust- / blonde that was me / before my last birth- / day.") and then shifts to politico-social commentaries such as "Piercings," a sly tongue-in-cheek look at today's fad of body piercing.

Seemingly in the same breath, Mr. Lewis delivers intensely personal writings such as "Stimuli," "Feasting - Sonnet VI," and "Touch."  He seems incapable of holding anything back, and the reader is richer for his ability to put feelings into words, and to do it so clearly.

Some poems speak more intimately to those who know the poet, but at the same time, Mr. Lewis speaks directly to the masses, bringing to life his own life, his own words, his own thoughts, and phrasing these in such a way that everyone can relate to the work and bring something away.

It is impossible to read this volume and come away untouched.

Axe Against An Elm/Covenant Songs, by Jack Lewis, © 2001, Writers Club Press.
 
 
 



DECEMBER 2003
A GOOD READ:
“TigerTale, Volume 2:  Selected Poems 1966-2002”
Review by Jean McAllister, Guest Book Editor

A collection of poems reveals a life; Craig Tigerman’s TigerTale (2) swirls richly around themes of time and dreams, of loss and new life, revealing a probing, playful, and deeply reverent spirit.  The poems are arranged skillfully into 4 sections, called Dixie Highway (“sweet dreams”), On the Run (“harsh reality”), Tiger Road (“Love triumphs over all”) and Into the Distance (“by faith”).  By the time you get to the last section, you are so entranced by the skill and scope of this poet, that his personal witnesses and hymns of praise that flow from his Christian faith are most authentic and compelling.

Mr. Tigerman’s style is rich and varied.  He uses various poetic forms with competence, and his rhyming is admirable.  Images and rhythm flow skillfully.  He has been a prolific songwriter, and these poems often reflect a melodic lyricism.  But style alone is not what makes this collection so richly satisfying.  The poems reflect deeply felt experience, cherished and hard-won values lived out, pain and struggle with the difficulties of life and loss of love, as well as stunning faith.

Consider, for your tantalization, a brief selection of first lines:  “Through the night’s portal I wandered”; Stand in the shadows at Sunrise Lake”; We dissected a worm in Biology, Dad!”; “Ragged thoughts have lost the trail”; “A friend does not plan to disappear.”  Each draws you right into the poem, and the poem does not disappoint.

From the early section of poems onward, there is a recurring interest in time:  What has history revealed?  Where does life come out in the end?  How can we view our progress through time, how assess our journey?  Two poems might be paired as illustrations of this theme—“Que Sera,” a musing on the children playing, and where they will end up (“For time will tell each angel’s hell,/Each devil’s heaven before death’s knell.”), and “A Metabolism Thing” (“If I live to be eighty, will I remember when/My body was unbowed?”)  In parallel, there is the repeated wondering about the interface between dreams and reality.  In “Bit of a dreamer, bit of a fool,” the poignant last lines are a question:  “Will our dreams redeem our souls?/And will warmth overcome the cold?”

In several poems, the evils and ills of society are the subject, perhaps most startling in one written September 1, 2001, called “Anyway.”  This is a complex poem about the futility of words—first, in communicating anything useful about love to the next generation, and second, in convincing the world to come out of its self-destructive ways.  “One nation’s greed consumes its destiny./ The world looks on in pity and disdain./ So great a vision, in captivity/ To self-destruction, so shall violence reign.”  The power of grief here reminds me of Yeats’ lines in “The Second Coming”:  “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. . ./The ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

Tiger’s poetic reach is capacious.  He can do a riff on the initial “M” in “Mything,” about men from Mars “missing Venus’ point,” and an extended legacy to his children based on planting a garden—both metaphorically and actually.  As many great poets do, Tiger writes frequently about the challenge of being a poet, searching for words where there are no words.  One of these is whimsical and clever (“Blockee’s Lament”); another is a glorious psalm of praise (“Rhapsody of Knowing”).

In “A Bowl of Moonstones,” there is a line which could be used to characterize the whole collection:  “. . .love precepts/For walking on this earth.”  Never does the poet indulge in self-pity or maudlin sentimentality, while probing the depths of temptations to take one’s life, the real grief of loss, or the amazing love of God.  Several poems are particular treasures to point to:  One is “A Fearsome Beauty,” leaving the reader breathless with wonder in seven lines.  Another is “Last Look,” in which he uses the pathetic fallacy (nature is seen as having the emotions of the poet) in a liquid simplicity reminiscent of George Herbert.  The last poem, “This Gifted Cup,” is a hymn for which I would love to hear the melody.

A personal, experienced, clever, skillful, real revelation, this collection is most rewarding reading.


Available from iuniverse.com, Amazon.com, and others, the volume is definitely a good read.  For more information and an example poem from the book, please visit Sol Magazine's Books and Chapbooks pages.


NOVEMBER 2003
A GOOD READ:
"A Poet’s Basic Library,"
by Gary Blankenship, Assistant Editor

To improve in craft, every poet should be surrounded with books.  But which volumes are necessary for a poet to improve both technique and art in their writing?  Here are some books that may help in that quest.

1. General reference material:  Invest in a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an encyclopedia of poetry forms.  For the first, save yourself a bit of money and purchase paperback editions, perhaps Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Roget’s College Thesaurus.  Any reference point they do not cover can be found on the Web at a site such as http://www.yourdictionary.com/

2.  Style-specific reference material:  For classical rhyming, why not try Penguin Books’ Rhyming Dictionary?  For more modern poets, Penguin also publishes a thorough Slang Thesaurus that includes not only American slang, but also British, Australian, and Canadian.

3.  Form reference handbook:  Lewis Turco wrote an excellent handbook.  Look for The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, University Press of New England.   Make sure you get the latest edition, for between the first and third editions, the author doubled the number of forms included.  If you prefer an online reference for forms, a good one to bookmark is The Glossary of Poetic Terms at http://www.poeticbyway.com/glossary.html

4.  Writing improvement guides:  One invaluable guide is The Poet’s Companion:  A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Lux, WW Norton Press.  This book is full of great examples and outstanding exercises to help hone skills.

5.  How to read poetry:  After reading these books, you will be ready to fully appreciate the art and diversity of poetry.  Start with How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, Edward Hirsch, Harvest Books, or consider Judith Tannenbaum’s Disguised as a Poem:  My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin, Northeastern University Press.

6.  Anthologies:  Any essential shelf of poetry should include a few solid classical, modern, or ethnic anthologies.  For the classical, a good complete volume is Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams, Pocket Books.  For a book that meets modern Twentieth-Century standards, look for The Voice That is Great Within Us:  American Poetry of Twentieth Century, edited by Hayden Carruth, Bantam.  A few good ethnic anthologies are:  The Black Poets, Dudley Randall, Bantam; From the Country of Eight Islands: an Anthology of Japanese Poetry, Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, Columbia University Press; The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century, Burton Watson, Columbia University Press.

Naturally, these are not the only poetry books available for you to own.  In each category, there are many more that will be recommended with great fervor by other experts.  There is also so much material available online that you could probably put off some purchases in favor of Googling a topic.

Of course, there is nothing as satisfying as holding a good read in book form.
 



 

AUGUST 2003
A GOOD READ:

"Under the Limbo Stick:  Maryann's Poetic Dance"
a book review by Gary Blankenship, Assistant Editor

Under the Limbo Stick, by Maryann Hazen-Stearns, ViviSphere Publishing, 1991

Sol Magazine Member, Maryann Hazen-Stearns may be familiar to many of our readers, for not only is she a continuing contributor of poetry, but also her web site was featured here at Sol in the August, 2000, ON THE WEB.  She is a Poet Laureate finalist, contest judge and sometime guest editor.

Maryann is a poet's poet, with a talent that stands out even among the best.  She is the proud recipient of the Silver Rose Award for Poetic Achievement, and has had poetry published throughout the US, Canada, Switzerland, Britain and India, and has had work appear in over 30 print publications, as well more than 350 electronic publications.  Maryann is listed in the current edition of A Directory of American Poets & Fiction Writers; she teaches "Poetry As Pastime," at Sullivan County Community College in New York.

"Under the Limbo Stick," a collection of excellent poems, was published in 2001.  Samplings from "Under the Limbo Stick" attest to the depth and variety of material offered.  Maryann amuses with her sly wit in "Lady Magazine:"

The magazine I bought yesterday at the
checkout-counter told me:  I need to have

a job and keep house, as well as
fight unsightly, suburban dandelions

She charms with her love of fairy lore, as in "If I Could Be a Fairy Sprite:"
If I could be a fairy sprite
and with my wings a-twinkle
I'd sprinkle moon dust through the night
Her voices range from sensual adult, as in "Cotton & Wool:"
You are only thick sweater from me.
Cable knit nipple sensitive
...to innocent child, as in "The Oreo and Kool-Aid Day:"
we wore swimsuits and sat
on towels that would never
come clean again or so
our moms would say and shake
their heads in dismay...
Maryann Hazen Stearns uses poetic tools such as internal rhyme and enjambment seamlessly, writes in structured forms and in free verse with equal deftness, and gives us poetry to match any mood or desire.  She seems at her best with tough poetry from her life experiences.

Maryann's uncompromising honesty and clear poetic vision in Under the Limbo Stick make it well worth the read.  Available from the author, ViviSphere Publishing, and Amazon.com, the volume offers 175 poems, definitely a good read.
 
 
 


(2002) November’s A GOOD READ:
A Book Review of "Otherwise," by Jane Kenyon.
Guest Reviewer:  James Thompson

Jane Kenyon's book of new and selected poems entitled "Otherwise" (Graywolf Press, 1997) provides an intimate look at a poet's life.  Like the cover art, an impressionist painting of a walled country garden by Gustave CailleBotte, the selected poems speak of the gentle pastoral joys and trials of a country life.

Kenyon, who struggled with bouts of depression through her life, sways between sadness and joy from poem to poem:

Excerpt from "Two Days Alone":

In the woodshed
darkness all around and inside me.
The only sound I hear
is my own breathing.  Maybe
I don't belong here.
Nothing tells me that I don't.
Excerpt from "Here":
I felt my life start up again,
like a cutting when it grows
the first pale and tentative
root hair in a glass of water.
Jane Kenyon, wife of poet Donald Hall, was diagnosed with leukemia in January, 1994 and died on April 22nd, 1995.  While only two poems in the book were written after she became sick, there is a hint of melancholy in many of these poems.  The title poem hauntingly seems to predict her illness at the poet speaks of the joys of her day, each scene qualified:

Excerpt from "Otherwise":

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It could have been
otherwise.
The poem ends with, "But one day, I know, it will be otherwise."

While reading her poems, each joy and sadness comes across in the wonderful flow of her words.  Impressed with how her uncomplicated verse communicated so much, it is easy, time and again, to grab the book to read and re-read each poem.  Knowing of her life and death, the reader can experience Kenyon's triumphs and travails as she reveled in the joys and sadness of life, and feel saddened at the infinite loss of her passing.  This book is highly recommended.
 
 



(2002) August’s A GOOD READ:  "Breathing Under Water,"
a book review by Jean McAllister, Guest Editor

In this collection of poems, poet Susan Bright has accomplished with extraordinary immediacy the recreation and re-enactment of an entire community. This beautifully crafted compilation of memories, dreams, and prose poem essays on humanity is filled with surprises and delights.  In it, Bright draws us into her circle generously, an arm around our shoulder, saying, let me introduce you to my friends.  She celebrates Barton Springs, a spring-fed pool in Austin, Texas, where the temperature is always 68 degrees.

The specificity of the setting calls us to a point in time and space, a gathering focus that serves as a fruitful metaphor/semaphore.  Its effect is to disseminate the beauty and light revealed in relationships in and around this magical but real place.  In her title poem, Susan Bright reminds us of the power of dreams.   Most of us have dreamed that we could fly, only to be disappointed upon waking.  Yet most of us have eventually learned that the dream of flying can come true as we encounter the updrafts and thermals of daily life, and that the dream has foreseen and encouraged us into what as humans we could not expect.

So, with this coherent depiction of the Barton Springs area, the metaphor is swimming and water.  Images flow easily from one thought to another, a stream of consciousness which Bright beautifully disciplines without disturbing its life flow.

In her introduction, a poem on its own, she describes the work as “a cycle of poems about swimming threaded from my own voice and the voices of people I know.”  As she sought to listen to others’ voices, she gradually found ways to incorporate them, along with their names, into her poems and prose pieces.   Her word “threaded” is apt, indicating a continuity, connectedness, selectivity, and beauty as of a beaded necklace.

Barton Springs is spoken into our hearts through these poems.  As with any group, the individual members each bring something special to the whole, and show a microcosm of human life with its reachings and disappointments, its joys, griefs, angers, and celebrations.  The structure, in which poems are interspersed between the prose pieces, provides an impetus propelling one onward, caught up by the life thrust, a swirl of colors and sensual, earthy images, surprises waiting gleefully around the next line, the next page.  There is a deeply trained and sensitive conscience in this book, a morality born of careful listening, observing, experiencing, and diving into life.  The writing reachs beyond the surface of the shimmering metaphor and out to the edges of life and longings.

Here are the last lines of the book, from “Going Back for More”:  “Even in August the water chills me perfectly, afterwards the air tingles on my skin, welcoming me back to a second native matrix, reminding me that we can change dramatically the overwhelming oppression of scorched light, broken intent, arthritic joints by simply diving into Barton Springs, by lingering in the afterglow, by going back for seconds, more, life force, always more.”
 

About Susan Bright:  Award-winning author of eighteen books of poetry, Susan is the editor of Plain View Press.  She has been invited to speak all over the world, and has been publicly honored for her literary and community work by the Texas Senate and by the Austin Women’s Political Caucus, which awarded her the Woman of the Year Award in 1990.

About Jean McAllister:  Poet and writer, Jean was born in New York City, and raised in Princeton, NJ, now lives in the state of Washington. She received a BA at University of Santa Clara, and a PhD in English from University of Washington. Her work has been published in Sol Magazine, and she was a finalist in a Houston Writers League Chapbook Competition. Jean was Sol Magazine's Book Reviewer between 1998-2000.


 




(2002) JULY'S RECOMMENDED READING - "Tannenbaum, Finch and Varnes, Mayes, and Glenn."

PART 1:  FROM OUR READERS

Our thanks go out to Gary Blankenship (Bremerton, Washington, USA) for sending us these three recommendations:

1.  Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin, Judith Tannenbaum, Northeastern University Press (2000).

Run not walk to wherever you buy books and get this one. You will not be sorry. You will reread it. You will find yourself quoting it. You may go to an open mic and read it instead of your own. A simple moving story with enough drama to be interesting, but not so much as it is a prison movie. The author, one time Berkeley radical, changes during the story as she moves from ordinary teacher to part of the establishment.

2. An Exaltation of Forms, Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes (editors), U of Michigan Press (2000).  Subtitled Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art.

Essays on poetic forms and styles: Meter, Stanzas, Received Forms, Experimentation. Most chapters are arranged form simple to more complex. For example Meter goes from accentual verse to hendecasyllics and beyond. The book discusses some forms seldom seen: Clerihews*, hip-hop, prose poems, Decima, Oulipian, Low Coup, and a fun essay by Bill Collins on Paradelle. Well worth the read. This is one of the few books which acknowledge the web and web poets.

*Editor’s note:  The Clerihew is a brief humorous biographical poem, named for Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875 - 1956), the English mystery writer, who is credited with its creation.  The Clerihew has four lines of two rhyming couplets (aabb) and no fixed meter. The first line is usually the name of the person the poem is about.

3. The Discovery of Poetry, Francis Mayes, Harcourt (2001).

Chapters on Approaches, Sound, Images, Speaker, Rhyme, Meter, Free Verse,  Forms, Style, Interpretation (maybe the best), The Poet. Interesting poetic  selections (Read Free Union by Andre Breton). Enough exercises to break any  block. Very highly recommended.

Quoted from the book:  Often we hear "What does this poem mean?" That's an odd question, a reductive question that sounds as if the poem is sitting there on the page while "meaning" hovers above it like a little white cloud; as if we must read the cloud formations to find the real poem.

PART 2:  FROM OUR STAFF

This suggestion comes from Craig Tigerman, host of this feature.

The Taking of Room 114, Mel Glenn, Lodestar Books (1997).  Subtitled, A Hostage Drama in Poems.

My daughter-in-law, a library science graduate student, recently gave me this book to read.  I was captivated by it.  Here is an intimate look at a classroom of teenagers, one by one, as they grow through their high school years.  The surprise ending was frosting on the cake.  I found The Taking of Room 114 gripping, poignant, moving, and well-written.  Anyone who has gone through high school will be touched by it.
 
 


A GOOD READ:  "Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet,"
a book review by Craig Tigerman, Editor in Chief

"Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet," by James Atlas,
Welcome Rain Publishers, New York (2000), 418 pages.
 

Out of the Great Depression in the literary circles of New England emerged a collection of poets embodying the movement then called Modernism.  Among them were Randall Jarrett, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, and Delmore Schwartz.  They debated Marxism and modern culture on university campuses, and wrote poetry that defined their era.  Among them none was as lively, talented, well-read, or intelligent as Delmore Schwartz.

James Atlas has produced a definitive biography in this far-reaching book, chronicling the life of "the most underrated poet of the twentieth century" (John Berryman).  With extensive source materials including Schwartz' surviving letters and manuscripts plus interviews with many who knew this unusual and complex man, Atlas expertly traces Schwartz' swift rise as "the most promising young poet of his generation" who, plagued by alternating self-doubt and visions of greatness, left a trail of ruined relationships and squandered talent behind him as he descended into alcohol and amphetamines in the 1940s and 50s.

Schwartz was a friend to W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams, staunch fan of T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, and author of a critically acclaimed collection of poetry and short stories, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" (1938), whereby he became recognized as wonder boy intellectual of a new era in American literature.  Atlas then takes the reader through Schwartz' two failed marriages, his teaching positions at Harvard, Princeton, Kenyon College and Syracuse University, and his time spent on the staff of "Partisan Review" and other literary magazines.  Through it all, Atlas describes with keenness and candor how Schwartz undermined his own success, becoming tormented by his lack of popular acclaim and the arrested promise of financial security, further accentuated by his growing dependence on gin and dexedrine.  Still, Schwartz continued to write stunning poetry and critical reviews through the 1940s and 50s, until madness completely overtook him in his final years, culminating in his death from heart failure in a squalid New York City hotel in 1966 at the age of fifty-two.

This book is a fascinating read, for its insight into the New England literary scene of the mid-twentieth century as well as for its thorough treatment of the tragic life of Delmore Schwartz.  Schwartz' love of poetry and overwhelming desire to express through it the truth of love has deeply moved those who have read his poems; he has been this reviewer's favorite poet for over thirty years.  His vision as well as his struggle may best be expressed in these beautiful lines excerpted from "The First Morning of the Second World" (cited on p.337 of Atlas' biography of Delmore Schwartz):

There hope was, and the hopes, and the years past,
The beings I had known and forgotten and half-remembered or remembered too often
-- How could I have known that the years and the hopes were human beings hated or loved,
Or known that I knew less and more than I supposed I supposed?
(So I questioned myself, in a voice familiar and strange.)
There they were, all of them, and I was with them,
They were with me, and they were me, I was them, forever united
As we all moved forward in a consonance silent and moving
Seated and gazing,
Upon the beautiful river forever.



A GOOD READ: "The Art of Drowning"
a book review by Craig Tigerman, Lead Editor

"The Art of Drowning" by Billy Collins (University of Pittsburgh Press: 1995), 95 pages.

I was delighted by my first encounter with the poetry of our new U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York. This, his fifth book, is readable and refreshing. Collins oscillates between invoking poets such as Shakespeare and Spinoza, and tickling the reader's funnybone. He writes with hints of ironic humor and often references common human experiences.

His references to well-known authors seemed pretentious at first, as if this were a tool or device by which he could legitimize his own place among them, but Collins' work needs no prop. What gives his poetry its noteworthy credibility is his easy yet penetrating linguistic style. He is a master of the English language, and gains our allegiance in his quest for meaning as he straddles two momentous centuries of history in his writing .

Collins is fascinated with many things. He writes of cosmic events in "While Eating a Pear" and "The End of the World." He talks about his own life in "The Best Cigarette" and "Fiftieth Birthday Eve." Music is a frequent topic, as in "Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales" and "The Invention of the Saxophone." Writing also catches his attention in "Medium" and "Thesaurus." Everyday beauty and life itself are examined in "Center" and "Days." Yet Collins' writing defies categorization. Each poem speaks in layers, prodding and soothing, soaring and winking, suggesting that boundaries are meant to be transcended.

In that transcendence, Billy Collins' poetry is worth reading and celebrating, and for those who have not read his work, I recommend this book as a good place to begin.
 
 

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