If I tell you this book ripped my heart out of my chest, would that make you want to read it?
I was already a big fan of Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant!If I tell you this book ripped my heart out of my chest, would that make you want to read it?
I was already a big fan of Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant! collections, but Ducks, a memoir in comics, was a different experience entirely. Having graduated from college with an arts degree, and motivated by student loan debt and a lack of opportunities in her native Cape Breton, Beaton takes a job in the oil sands of Alberta. The oil sands are probably familiar to most Canadians, but for the rest of us: they’re deposits of heavy crude oil that needs extracting. They’re pretty isolated, you often have to live on-site, and there are 50 male workers for every female worker.
Fifty men for every one woman, in an isolated setting. When we hear that, we know what it means. And Beaton does not skimp on any of the dark, ugly details and the toll they took.
But there’s more to this story. I’m also someone who grew up in an area that you pretty much had to leave in order to get anywhere in life. For the people who stay, men are still overwhelmingly viewed as the breadwinners, but what do they do when the coal mines empty out and the factories move to other countries? In the world of Ducks, where do they go when they’ve got an eighth-grade education and the fish are gone and the coal is too? They move to the oil sands, far from their families and communities, surrounded by other men. And a few women.
Beaton does not sugarcoat or excuse any of the many harrowing experiences she had in the oil sands, but at the same time she musters far more compassion and tenderness than I could have in a similar situation. These two elements coexisted in her life, and their coexistence in Ducks is what pushes the book to another level. The PR materials I got with this book likened it to Maus, Persepolis, and Fun Home—three classics of the form. I was skeptical of this comparison going in, but not anymore. All this book needs is the audience. Please read it.
And don’t skip the acknowledgments at the end—there’s a little more to the story.
Thank you to Drawn & Quarterly for the review copy of this beautiful book that’s destined to be one of my favorites of the year, and probably of all time....more
When I finished Cat's Eye the other night I had goosebumps and they didn't go away immediately. I paced around my living room for a while, rubbing my When I finished Cat's Eye the other night I had goosebumps and they didn't go away immediately. I paced around my living room for a while, rubbing my arms. I didn't quite know what I was feeling and I still don't. I don't think I've ever read such a deep dive into a character before, where we get to see how a character's childhood and upbringing affects the trajectory of her entire life. In some ways this book is about how women relate to themselves and one another in a sexist society, but it also pretends it's not about that; Elaine, the main character, has some blind spots that make her all the more interesting to consider. I thought the writing was phenomenal, poetic wtithout being fussy, with so many layers, and yet even on the surface it was a fantastic, entertaining story.
As I've mentioned on Goodreads a few times, I first read this back when I was 18 or 19, and that fact makes me laugh now. I was in no way sophisticated enough to appreciate what a towering work this is. All this time I thought this was one of Margaret Atwood's lesser novels! But that's changed. Move over, Robber Bride and Oryx and Crake. Cat's Eye is my new favorite....more
There's no better book to read in these (to put it mildly) trying times. Ross Gay is not blind to the horrors and injustices of the world, but he has There's no better book to read in these (to put it mildly) trying times. Ross Gay is not blind to the horrors and injustices of the world, but he has the kind of optimism and faith in humanity most of us can only dream of having. And because he's a poet, he knows how to make the most of small moments and imbue them with vivid, colorful detail. He's the best. He is the best. Tempting as it may be, don't binge on these short essays—read one a day, just as they were written, and see if you don't find yourself looking forward to it every morning.
A David Sedaris essay collection is always going to get at least four stars from me. This gets five because I loved the way so many of the essays wereA David Sedaris essay collection is always going to get at least four stars from me. This gets five because I loved the way so many of the essays were centered around his family vacations at his North Carolina beach house. It felt extremely personal, and of course it was so interesting to learn more about his brother and sisters, who play a larger role in this book than ever before. And as always, it was laugh-out-loud funny. Recommended....more
"Walt Whitman is the Number Two Beach Body every year, because look at the way he snapped back into shape only months after giving birth to American P"Walt Whitman is the Number Two Beach Body every year, because look at the way he snapped back into shape only months after giving birth to American Poetry."
Okay, maybe this quote doesn't particularly represent Patricia Lockwood's poetry (or does it?)—I just thought it was funny, and to be completely fair it's pretty much impossible to pull a line or two from Patricia Lockwood's poetry and make it stand in for the whole. This is some of the densest, most intense poetry I've ever read. In each poem all of the lines interlock, fitting together like puzzle pieces, and separating one or two from the whole would be just as meaningless as trying to extrapolate the Golden Gate Bridge from two random pieces of blue water. The themes, some collision of nature and sex and national identity, are bewildering and engrossing and offer a great snapshot of Lockwood's clearly strange yet astounding mind. It's also somehow really funny. And it's totally contemporary and up-to-the-minute, but also so rigorous it makes most other poets look like they're just playing around. This is a type of poetry I never thought I would ever find but I'm so happy I have. Patricia Lockwood. Who knew?...more
A brave candling theory I'm making for you, little lamplight; believe,
and ripple out free as shimmer is. Go. Don't go. Go.
I'm not sure anyone writes abouA brave candling theory I'm making for you, little lamplight; believe,
and ripple out free as shimmer is. Go. Don't go. Go.
I'm not sure anyone writes about death better than Mark Doty does, but I'm not sure anyone writes about life better than Mark Doty does, either. Atlantis is the poetry collection that deals the most directly with the death of his partner, Wally, from AIDS, but when I think about it ten days after finishing it, I see a riot of colors and textures: brightly hued half-submerged boats in the harbor; vivid shades of nature, of sea and sky, of textiles and precious gems and metals. The animals are lively and life-giving; the men stop living when they die, but not a moment sooner than that. The connections Doty draws among all of these things are rapturous and deeply felt, and as a reader, you feel profoundly sad, but also profoundly grateful to be alive....more
I grew up in a small blue-collar Catholic town where there weren't exactly a lot of different models for how a person might choose to live his or her I grew up in a small blue-collar Catholic town where there weren't exactly a lot of different models for how a person might choose to live his or her life. I somehow emerged from my (also Catholic) university a more progressive person than when I'd gone in, but I still couldn't conceive of a life beyond the get-random-job, get-married, have-kids, give-up-job-to-raise them paradigm I'd seen all around me growing up. Then I read Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, and I was enthralled. All these interesting characters! All these varied lives and lifestyles! All this time spent figuring things out instead of defaulting to what everyone else seems to be doing! It was so interesting, and so fun, and so endearing, and it made me fall in love with the 1970s San Francisco it portrayed. The Tales of the City books were formative for me, and I adored and devoured all six volumes, not to mention the three modern-day volumes Maupin wrote later. I also consider Maupin's insanely suspenseful and completely unputdownable stand-alone novel The Night Listener one of my all-time favorites. Avoid the movie version, but don't avoid the wonderful Tales of the City miniseries, of which there are three installments. There may even be a fourth coming soon, and as long as Paul Hopkins will be back to play Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, I will be totally on board. Oh, who am I kidding; I'll be totally on board either way. I love Armistead Maupin so much I can barely stand it sometimes.
So it was a major disappointment to find that I hated this memoir. Just kidding! Of course I totally loved it. If I had given it anything less than 4 stars, I would hope someone would call 911 on my behalf, because clearly something would be seriously wrong with me. If you read the Tales of the City books, you may feel you already know a lot about Armistead Maupin, but Logical Family will surprise you with how much else there is to know. As it turns out, Maupin did not crawl out of the San Francisco Bay fully formed, wearing tight Levis, a button-down plaid shirt, and the same seventies-tastic mustache he still sports to this day. He was raised in the South by a conservative father, and considered himself conservative until well into his twenties. He served in the Vietnam War! He considered becoming a lawyer for his father's firm! This was all fascinating, as was the story of his transition to an out gay man, writer of a popular daily series for the SF Chronicle, and social justice warrior. I'd always seen the Michael Tolliver character as Maupin's stand-in, but reading Logical Family made me realize how many of his characters represent parts of his past and personality, from the small-town naivete of Mary Ann Singleton to the worldly and mysterious Mrs. Madrigal, and everyone in between. I read most of this book in a state of unfettered joy, interrupted only once or twice by heartfelt weeping.
Logical Family has a lot to offer any reader, but I think it's best for people who are familiar with Maupin's past work. Without that background, you're going to miss a lot of the references. But this shouldn't serve as a deterrent for anyone. Rather, it should serve as the spark to acquaint yourself with Maupin's delightful Tales and the unique reading experience they offer.
If I had one complaint about this memoir, it could only be that I wanted more. As much as Maupin included in Logical Family, I'm sure there's a lot that he left out. So my next step will be to watch the recent documentary The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin, which, as luck would have it, is showing on PBS on the evening of January 1. A better way to begin 2018 I cannot imagine. Happy New Year!...more
Ellen Ullman's memoir Close to the Machine is one of the books I remember most vividly from the 1990s. She followed it up with two novels; I admired bEllen Ullman's memoir Close to the Machine is one of the books I remember most vividly from the 1990s. She followed it up with two novels; I admired but didn't love 2003's The Bug, but I thought By Blood, from 2012, was fantastic. When I found out about Life in Code, I was ecstatic, expecting Ullman would take the writing chops she'd honed with her novels and combine it with the fascinating subject matter of Close to the Machine, resulting in an an artful, up-to-the minute document of our times. What could be better?
But that's not quite what's happening with Life in Code. I'd been under the impression that this was a memoir, but in fact it's actually a collection of essays that span 20 years. I hadn't read any of them so it was all new to me, but that doesn't mean it was all... new. An essay about the Y2K bug was interesting, for example, and taught me a lot I didn't know back then, but without some kind of present-day commentary it felt pretty irrelevant. There's also a lot of material in here discussing whether we can make computers or robots that are sentient in the same way humans are. Presumably this issue loomed large back when it first seemed possible that we could do this, but it just doesn't feel as urgent now. As a culture, we've moved on.
Expectations are everything. I was initially disappointed when I realized what Life in Code consisted of, and I put it aside for a bit. When I returned with adjusted expectations, I liked the book much more. It helped that as the essays went on, they became more relevant to the present day, addressing the battle for the internet (individual vs. corporation vs. government); the way companies (like Google and, ahem, Amazon) are mining our data to market to us and we kind of don't even care anymore; the ever-changing role of our online activity in our day-to-day lives; and the ever-changing Bay Area now that the startups have moved in, shut down, moved in again. This stuff was fascinating, and I regretted having a library copy because there was so much I wanted to underline and remember and contemplate further.
Life in Code did also delve into Ullman's personal life, with some amusing essays about her early jobs in programming, a touching piece about her elderly pet cat, some remarks on how she came to write By Blood (which was a major departure for her, writing-wise, and wholly a success, in my opinion), and ruminations on where she sees herself now in the world of software engineering, in her longtime home of San Francisco, and in Trump's America. As I had hoped and expected, Ullman's writing has become even better over the years, and she's able to move from topic to topic gracefully, always entertaining and informative, smart but not intimidating, filled with compassion for human beings but not afraid to criticize those of us she thinks are on the wrong path.
Granted, I have no idea if there are other software engineers out there writing at Ellen Ullman's level. It's possible that if I call this book essential I'm just displaying my ignorance of all the other books and authors doing exactly the same thing she does. But, oh well—surely there are a lot of other amateurs out there who, like me, would benefit from reading about topics like these presented this invitingly. So I'm going to go ahead and deem Life in Code essential....more
Ever since I read Mira Jacob's 2015 Buzzfeed article about her son's obsession with Michael Jackson and the questions it raised (and subsequently begaEver since I read Mira Jacob's 2015 Buzzfeed article about her son's obsession with Michael Jackson and the questions it raised (and subsequently began following her excellent Instagram account, @goodtalkthanks), I have been desperate to read Good Talk. I waited impatiently for the book to (finally!) be released, for my library to obtain a copy, for the copy to make it to my branch. When it (finally!) arrived just in time for my staycation, I was ECSTATIC. My expectations couldn't have been higher, is what I'm saying. Good Talk met them all.
In some ways, it's surprising that Good Talk worked as well as it did. Jacob is an excellent artist, but (as in the excerpt I linked to), she mostly uses the same images over and over again against different backgrounds. Somehow, this never got tedious for me; in fact, it was oddly effective to get familiar with these images and see them recur. Beyond that, the book was funny and quick and did not hesitate to ask hard questions and dive into uncomfortable situations and dilemmas regarding race. It all felt very real and couldn't be more timely; the parts regarding Trump's election felt so authentic, and authentically awkward, that it's hard to imagine the reader who wouldn't relate in some way.
Based on the Buzzfeed article, I'd expected Good Talk to be centered around Jacob's conversations with her son, but although those of course make up a significant portion of the book, this is actually a memoir of Jacob's entire life and career thus far, including her search for love, her beginnings as a writer, and the publication of her first novel. I was a bit surprised by this initially, but quickly realized this background not only made for a fuller reading experience but actually contributed to its main themes. Jacob's East Indian heritage, of course, is an inextricable part of her experience as an American, and these experiences, for better or worse, provide some of the book's most effective teaching moments.
Which may make the book sound grim. But somehow it's not grim. Well, it's not the most optimistic book out there, that's true. But it's a great read, everything I could have hoped for, and a valuable contribution to the conversations that have gained urgency across the U.S. and across the world in the past few years. I recommend it to everyone....more
Town so empty, off season, you'd think that everybody'd died.
Certain types of images pervade Sweet Machine: animals, art, city streets in their parade Town so empty, off season, you'd think that everybody'd died.
Certain types of images pervade Sweet Machine: animals, art, city streets in their parade of chaos. Published in 1998 in the immediate wake of the worst of the AIDS epidemic, this collection takes grief and rebirth as its main topics, and sometimes when you think you're getting one you're really getting the other, as in "Murano," which seems to extol glassmaking and Venice but eventually turns dark:
... Is this what becomes of art, the hard-won permanence
outside of time? A struck match-head of a city, ungodly lonely
in its patina of fumes and ash? Gorgeous scrap heap where no one lives,
or hardly anyone
On the other hand, in more than one poem Doty is visited by the dead in his dreams, and although these verses are infused with sadness, they ultimately seem to bring him a kind of peace:
Bless you. You came back, so I could see you once more, plainly, so I could rest against you without thinking this happiness lessened anything, without thinking you were alive again.
Images of animals always reflect and magnify the larger world: a humpback whale who casually shrugs off the dire fate Doty predicts for him and instead becomes an emblem of joy; a bowl of small turtles for sale on Broadway that serve as a reminder that even a brief life can have meaning. Even a shelter full of dogs with an uncertain fate are a symbol of renewal:
No one's dog is nothing but eagerness
tempered with caution, though only a little. We wanted to be born
once, don't we want to be delivered again, even knowing the nothing
love may come to? O Lucky and Buddy and Red, we put our tongues to the world.
I read Doty's most recent collection, Deep Lane, last year and thought its title was a reference to T.S. Eliot's "East Coker." Similarly, I thought the title of this collection, Sweet Machine, was a reference to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I was all set to make an analogy regarding these influences, about how the Eliot connection in Deep Lane is evident both in those poems' more formal structure and in their more inscrutable emotions, whereas the Whitman element in Sweet Machine is revealed in the raw emotion, vividness, and stubborn joy at being alive that's present in these more accessible poems. But it turns out I was wrong on both counts: Doty wasn't referring to "East Coker" in Deep Lane but to a road near his house, and apparently Leaves of Grass doesn't mention the "sweet machine" at all; I don't know why I thought it did. But I believe my larger point still stands! Sweet Machine is a book about how even amidst grief and sadness, hope and joy and the fullness of life can still be found: "Hey... Somebody's going to live through this. Suppose it's you?"...more
The documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill was released in 2003 and proceeded to migrate on and off my Netflix queue for more than a decade beThe documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill was released in 2003 and proceeded to migrate on and off my Netflix queue for more than a decade before I finally watched it this spring. I have absolutely no idea why it took me so long—the film contains all my favorite things! By which I mean birds, the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, and lovable misfits. When I saw it back in April I immediately became a bit obsessed, and procuring and reading this book, written by the "bird man" himself, became job one on my to-do list.
I had high expectations for this book; I wasn't looking for just some cheesy movie tie-in. The fact is, Mark Bittner spent decades living close to the bone precisely because he wanted to be able to devote his life to creativity and contemplation. I hoped that would translate into a decent first literary outing for him, and fortunately it did. Like the movie, this is an absolutely charming story. After devoting some chapters to his early years on the streets of North Beach (fascinating stuff), Bittner effectively depicts the searching and despair that caused him to start paying attention to the wild parrots of San Francisco. Apparently up until then no experts had wanted to study the birds because they weren't native to the area (!), so eventually Bittner was able to carve out a niche as the go-to wild-parrot person in the city, which brought the film crew calling and changed his life completely. It's all in the book, which is structured bird by bird, with Bittner managing to chart his own life and growth via the stories of the individual wild parrots that most captured his imagination.
I'm a little sad that I waited so long to see this documentary and read this book. The fact is that it's now been about 20 years since Bittner could really be called the "bird man"—he's moved on, emotionally if not geographically, and the whole thing is now an episode of recent history. But I think the fact that I'm now around the same age as Bittner was when the movie was filmed made me understand and relate to him a bit more. Who knows if I would've been as touched by the whole thing if I'd experienced it when I was much younger?
A quick internet search reveals that Bittner is currently working on another memoir, one that delves more deeply into the many years he spent living on the streets (or nearly so) in North Beach. I find this prospect insanely exciting. This is the aspect of his life that I'm most curious about, and The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill makes it clear he's got the writing skills to do it justice. Hurry up and finish your new book, Mark Bittner! Just because it took me over a decade to read your last one is no reason to keep me waiting now....more
Alison Bechdel is a national treasure as far as I'm concerned; yet, I was reluctant to pick up the long-awaited The Secret to Superhuman Strength, becAlison Bechdel is a national treasure as far as I'm concerned; yet, I was reluctant to pick up the long-awaited The Secret to Superhuman Strength, because I thought it was a book about physical fitness, and... zzzzzz. Fortunately, my GR friend David's review convinced me to pick this up anyway, and I'm so glad. I should have known Bechdel wouldn't deliver anything less than stellar.
Bechdel is a devoted fitness buff, and this hefty graphic memoir does detail her various exercise regimes over the years, but in pursuit of much larger themes: the connection between mind and body, the connections between individuals, and most especially what it takes to become a better and more actualized person. As in Are You My Mother?, Bechdel employs other thinkers and writers in her explorations, in this case some of my own favorites: the Romantic poets, the American Transcendentalists, and the Beats of The Dharma Bums. As it happens, the fire lookout scenes, which I found the most affecting in The Dharma Bums, are also some of Bechdel's favorites, and her explication of them here was all that I could ask for in a book, and so beautifully illustrated.
Oh, that's the other thing about this book: perhaps not surprisingly, the illustrations are absolutely beautiful. And it's her first-ever book done in color (the coloring, in fact, was done by Bechdel's partner, Holly Rae Taylor), and some of the results are simply stunning. It's hard to believe Bechdel could top her earlier work, but I think she has. The Secret to Superhuman Strength was satisfying in just about every way....more
I asked a lot of Arts & Entertainments. At the time I picked it up, my brain was very tired and weary and "all" I wanted was a fast-paced, funny, enteI asked a lot of Arts & Entertainments. At the time I picked it up, my brain was very tired and weary and "all" I wanted was a fast-paced, funny, entertaining story. But it had to be smart and well-written, because poorly written stuff makes me angry, and that's not relaxing. And—this was key—I had to care enough about the characters to want to keep reading, but I didn't want to actually relate to them. Relating to them would have taken too much energy.
This novel delivered in every way! It was a vastly entertaining, up-to-the-minute, unputdownable tale. I see some reviewers suggesting the characters were unlikable, which, who cares, but I didn't find them that unlikable—I actually grew quite fond of our protagonist and, more surprisingly, (view spoiler)[his fake reality-TV girlfriend (hide spoiler)]. True, there was one character whose motives were quite opaque, but because they were opaque to the protagonist, it made sense that they would be opaque to the reader as well. Was this story realistic? Well, I would never behave the way these people do, but other people definitely have, and there are probably plenty more who would if they were given the opportunity. Delving into why and how these characters did the things they did was both fascinating and fun, and at the end there was (view spoiler)[a redemption (hide spoiler)] that to me felt earned and was really satisfying.
I suppose there's no point in saying this, but I don't get all the negative reviews and ratings this book has received here on Goodreads. Don't people recognize a good time when they're having one? Never mind. Even if it's only Christopher Beha and me at this party, I'm gonna stay until I get kicked out the door....more
Why Poetry is the book I'd been hoping Poetry Will Save Your Life would be. The more poetry I read, the more curious I get about how it works, and I'mWhy Poetry is the book I'd been hoping Poetry Will Save Your Life would be. The more poetry I read, the more curious I get about how it works, and I'm happy to say this book provided some answers. Among the many interesting points Zapruder puts forward, he maintains that the most crucial thing about poetry is the connections it makes. These can be connections of theme, of language, of sound—but the connections are what make a text poetry and not just prose broken up into short lines (sorry, Rupi Kaur). Zapruder uses some great poems to illustrate this point, and he does the same to address one of his other main points, which is that good poetry is accessible. Sure, it may have more sophisticated language than some prose does, but it's generally not hard to understand. Most memorably, Zapruder explicates a few lines of "The Wasteland"—a poem people tend to point to when they claim poetry is pretentious and impenetrable. Zapruder convincingly shows that not only is "The Wasteland" a beautiful poem and a masterpiece, it's honestly not that hard to figure out. As a reader of poetry and someone who wishes more people read poetry, I appreciated this more than I can say.
In addition to teaching me a lot about poetry, Why Poetry also introduced me to some great poets and poems I wasn't familiar with. It also had some fascinating memoir elements; not enough to distract from the main purpose of the book, but enough to entertain me and keep me wanting more. I loved pretty much every page of Why Poetry. I know there are some readers who are determined to see poetry as inaccessible, and those readers will probably decide Why Poetry is similarly difficult to read. But if you're curious about poetry and have an open mind, why not check out Why Poetry?...more
It's hard for me to know what I can say about a book like this that will do it justice. I think literally every American should read this book, and thIt's hard for me to know what I can say about a book like this that will do it justice. I think literally every American should read this book, and the more you feel like you don't want to, the more you probably should. "The side of love requires that we are uncomfortable."*...more
It's been a couple of days since I've written. Friday night I took some LSD and arranged five yellow Kodak boxes in the frontJuly 1, 1979, Raleigh, NC
It's been a couple of days since I've written. Friday night I took some LSD and arranged five yellow Kodak boxes in the front yard. It was good acid. It made me notice color a lot, and I could read and not get depressed. Saturday I took some crystal and spent all night doing rubbings of envelopes. Now I'll be off for three days.
I found out that Jack and Mary, the night managers at work, secretly refer to me as "the space cadet." God, that makes me mad.
[insert laughing-until-crying emoji here]
One thing I learned from reading Theft by Finding is that I am just completely fascinated by David Sedaris. Some readers have complained that, at 514 pages, this book is too long; others have said that the early entries are a chore to read because the writing isn't as good. None of that bothered me. I loved hearing about his early days as a starving artist, and once he started to achieve success with his writing I loved getting all kinds of background information on how he got his first publishing deal, how his book tours went, what other writers he knows and hangs out with. It's worth noting that these diaries were cut substantially for length, and in the cutting Sedaris seems to have left in only the best stuff about his young adulthood in Raleigh, omitting, as he says in his Introduction, most of the drug-fueled ramblings and applying his now well-honed sense of comic timing. Certainly you'll never read anything like this anywhere else, and while the later stuff was better written and interesting in its own right, the early years are really what make this distinctive. Just as fascinating is the narrative arc of Sedaris's career: He went from having to take money from his mother so he wouldn't starve and seriously thinking his life might have peaked in 1988 to being one of the most successful humor writers in the world, able to have multiple homes in NYC, Paris, and London. It's an extraordinary journey. I truly loved it all and was sorry when it was over. No word yet on when the 2003-2017 volume will be released, but it can't be too soon for me, Sedaris obsessive that I've turned out to be....more
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
How do I talk about this? As we all know, the reading experiences that have had the biggest impact on us can be the most difficult to write about. Marie Howe’s second collection is often exceedingly dark, dealing as it does with her turbulent, often violent childhood, a wrenching breakup, and, most indelibly, the slow death of her younger brother from AIDS complications. And yet by the time she gets to the title poem, excerpted above, she has managed a kind of redemption, instilled a sense that every moment is thrilling in its own way, regardless of what kind of moment it is. As a reader, you believe her. Or at least, I did. The gratitude I have for this kind of reading experience is impossible to quantify but also, thankfully, impossible to shake....more
This may be my favorite of hers so far, and that's really saying something. This was so intimate and visceral. Every time I opened the book I felt wraThis may be my favorite of hers so far, and that's really saying something. This was so intimate and visceral. Every time I opened the book I felt wrapped in Adrienne Rich's world in the 1970s. I suppose you could call this confessional poetry, but so much about it is universal....more
The title of Ramshackle Ode and that confetti-like riot of color on the cover pretty much telegraph that the reader is in for a life-affirming experieThe title of Ramshackle Ode and that confetti-like riot of color on the cover pretty much telegraph that the reader is in for a life-affirming experience, and the very first poem, "Keel," sets the tone:
...I was walking your dog, Love, thinking how I, too, have been boot-thudded by love, I was my own storm once, so young and eager to raise the sail of my wanting, and I just wanted to tell you I love this old boat, this settled-in thing.
Right away you can tell: Here is someone who's able to appreciate the moment he's in. He's not here to weigh us down with a lot of angst; he's here to celebrate, to write odes to the life he's living. Admittedly, this sounds a bit insufferable, but it's actually quite charming. In a few instances, he dedicates poems to his friends and actually addresses those friends in the verse, as in "Ode to Alternatives":
Hey Kevin, I know I'm always talking, but look at those two little boys who don't know any better-- they're using a king as a pawn, a pawn as a knight, a queen as a bishop--and isn't not knowing the rules just beautiful?
Or in "Ode to the Odes":
Hey Steve, do you ever think to write a letter to the board of selectmen elected to the blue city our language makes?
And if that bit seems a little esoteric to you, a little further on in the poem he rhapsodizes:
...I don't know if I'm making much sense here, but this morning my honey bunny kissed me on the lips all skunk breath and beautiful. And Steve, does it ever come to you like a vanilla-scented wind-- this happiness?
Aw, that's sweet, right? Maybe a little too sweet? How about this, from "A Brief History of Patience"?
Nights, I would wait for the first fish to swallow the hook. The trick, I learned, was not to force it, was to let the fish feel the pain that comes from blindness and mistake.
Whoa, dude! I was not expecting that! A little harsh, don't you think? But not really. It's true. It's life. And in fact, there's darkness woven throughout this collection, as there is in life, but it never overwhelms the buoyant spirit that makes this collection so much fun, and such a joy to read.
I won Ramshackle Ode, Keith Leonard's first collection, via a giveaway on Instagram. There was no expectation of any sort of review. Thank you to the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for introducing me to this poet. I'm grateful to have made his acquaintance....more
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