Triumphantly mordant and transporting poems.
This collection of poetry may be founded on a series of playful dreams, but its message of protest offers a rousingly powerful wake-up call.
This second volume of poetry by Salinas is divided into two sections. The first and longer of the two is entitled “Sleeping” while the second is called “Woken.” Many of the poems found in the first section delve into whimsical, dreamlike scenarios. In “Cat,” he muses: “I dreamt I was a snow-white cat who / Owned Haruki Murakami.” The deliciously absurd piece describes the poet as a cat master, demanding that felines be featured in all of Murakami’s books in exchange for food and shelter. In the equally absurd “Smoke,” Salinas writes: “I dreamt I was a cigarette,” followed later by “I begged Ayn / Rand to light me up.” The poem is rendered darker by the knowledge that Rand, a heavy smoker, contracted lung cancer. The mercurial nature of Salinas’ poetry will leave readers uneasy and uncertain of where he will take them next but beguiled all the same. His writing sometimes shoots from the hip. In a poem called “Native,” he references sexual harassment accusations against the Native American novelist Sherman Alexie, asserting controversially: “You allowed your pendulous / Totem pole to carve the path, and now all / Our efforts are shattered.” Yet when addressing the death of George Floyd in “Breathe,” the poet’s tone is tender, although tempered with rage: “My brother, / My beauty, / I can’t breathe / When I hold back the / Black rain.” Alternatively, “Whistling Dixie on Trump Tower one fine January morning” channels Salinas' disdain via an erasure poem shrewdly crafted by omitting selected words from Donald Trump’s 2017 presidential inauguration speech—part of which reads threateningly: “I will fight you / never, ever let you / start winning again.” Other pieces are marked by the poet’s expressive wordplay; in “Serpentine Situation,” gridlock on the interstate is described delightfully as “Aggro jazz of / Chrysalis lives, / Some in Chryslers.” This outstanding collection goes where it likes, often to places some readers may not wish to follow. Those who do will not experience a dull moment.
Triumphantly mordant and transporting poems.Pub Date: July 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-912017-19-5
Page Count: 77
Publisher: Hekate Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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
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