A cogent biography weaves life and poetry together for an appreciative look at the unconventional and exacting artist. Reef takes readers from the happy childhood that nurtured his flair for theatrics, as well as his ear for language and rhythm, through his career at Harvard, where he encountered the avant-garde, to his rather feckless adulthood, in which his only real constant was his dedication to his art. Braided into this flowing account are the artistic and literary lions Cummings met along the way, the loyal friends and family who supported the poet as he traveled and wrote and the women he loved and sometimes married. An abundance of archival illustrations sets the scene throughout, and Cummings’s poetry is reproduced in its full typographical idiosyncrasy. Graceful commentary on the poems, both as works themselves and as they related to events in his life, make this effort stand out. It would have been made even stronger with fuller contextualization of Cummings’s work among his contemporaries; as it is, it represents a solid introduction to one of the early 20th-century’s more provocative American poets. (notes, bibliography, glossary, index) (Biography. YA)
Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-56849-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
Evocative, elegant prose tells the true, first-person story of Samantha’s difficult childhood navigating a learning disability. Sam has dyscalculia, which severely hinders her ability to understand sequential processing. Academic skills affected include math, spelling, and grammar; other inabilities are telling time, understanding how hours pass, counting money, and dialing the phone. As a child, Sam disguises both her inability to function like other children as well as her shame and fear about it. The eventual diagnosis of “learning disabled” is a godsend, but still leaves many challenges. At age 15, Sam publishes a group-project book of her own original poems (Reach for the Moon), and although high school and college are massive challenges, she finishes both. Crippling social anxiety turns out to be caused not just by the learning disability, but also by depression. Medication brings some long-needed relief. Educational and beautifully written, perfectly demonstrating how learning disabilities can coexist with real talent. (Memoir. YA)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-439-33904-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003
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