Tenderly observant and rewarding poetry.
This debut collection of poetry offers an amble through life and nature.
“There is nothing tidy about this volume,” writes Parker in his opening letter to readers. Yet even though the poems are not ordered by “history, subject matter, literary form, or style,” there is a satisfying sense of cohesion to the collection. The author approaches a broad range of subjects, from nature and religion to families and food—he even writes his own obituary—but the poems remain united by Parker’s sedately measured narrative voice. In a coming-of-age poem entitled “Conversion,” he describes his father, a Vermont farmer who became a minister, “in the confidence of his black robe / pouring the unction of his words / over the congregation.” The author’s smooth-edged observations serve similarly as a balm, soothing the painful questions of existence. In “No Doubt,” he writes a maxim for life that epitomizes his poetic worldview: “This is my present: to be in love with everything, and more / with lovely things that will be quickly spent; / still more, because the loss is permanent.” Parker’s sense of peace and determination to savor life are contagious. His poetry takes joy in the overlooked details of flora. In “Leeks,” he first provides the gardener’s perspective of watching the vegetables grow, noting whimsically: “The leaves become their /stockings underground. / By fall the stems are layers / of thin socks tugged up on / each other—no feet at all.” That is followed pleasingly by the viewpoint of the cook: “I will / have thick soup before / December’s iron freeze.” The poem is sensuous and transporting—leading readers to the vegetable patch and later placing the steaming potage before them. Throughout the volume, the poet’s use of simile is exquisitely pictorial and refreshingly innovative: “My words bounced / like butterflies off a rhinoceros.” But there are occasional falters toward cliché: “The high narrow wheels rode through like Jesus / walking on the water.” While several illustrations by Tyrol do not greatly inform or improve the reading experience, this is nonetheless an enchanting collection.
Tenderly observant and rewarding poetry.Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-57869-031-2
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Rootstock Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888363-43-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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