This year's Pushcart anthology of small-press literature is the biggest yet—which means more gems, and yet more dross surrounding them. This year's crop of short stories mostly consists of straightforward depictions of working-class life and death. In this vein, the stand-out is Ron Carlson's ``Oxygen,'' a vivid account of a late-'60s summer spent delivering oxygen to invalids in Arizona. Meanwhile, Pamela Painter's short study ``The Kiss'' addresses a question on many minds lately: What is it like to kiss someone wearing a dumbbell-shaped rod through his pierced tongue? The Pushcart's forte remains literary criticism and memoir. This year features strong contributions from Charles Baxter on the relation between poetry and prose, Lewis Hyde on the place of the aleatory in art, Charles Simic on his days as an unknown poet in New York, and Gretchen Legler on her passion for hunting. Once again the selection of poetry is fairly uneven. A contribution from Robert Pinsky finds the US poet laureate at his most pedantic, while selections like Julia Vinograd's ``For the Young Men Who Died of AIDS'' (which asks, ``How can people go on buying toothpaste / and planning their summer vacations?'') court bathos. A shorter, more surreal poem succeeds, however: David Hayward's speech in the voice of a combative minor-league baseball mascot, ``Davy Cricket.'' Similarly surreal and successful prose efforts include Susan Daitch's dreamlike ``Killer Whales'' and Tomas Filer's ``Civilization,'' an intriguing tale of how the borders between life and movies blurred in the California of a lifetime ago. The baseball-team mascot Davy Cricket from Heyward's poem provides a kind of emblem for the Pushcart. If the anthology, like the blue-foam-suited Davy, can appear bloated and overly loyal to the performers it celebrates, to complain would be churlish. For the Pushcart's cheerleading calls our attention to some wonderful literature, and, what's more, to the wonderful variety that redeems the existence of more mediocre work.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888889-01-2
Page Count: 650
Publisher: Pushcart
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
