An engaging collection with luminous language that seeks to explore and reassure.
Schumacher’s sixth set of poems offers meditations on the impermanence of life, the majesty of nature, and the importance of faith.
Starting off in spring, around St. Patrick’s Day, these vivid poems describe wonders in the outdoors in “Scenic Interludes” with flashes of brilliant color, such as “pink cactus flowers” and tumbleweeds that are like “wiry knots / of hair torn from the heads / of battling giants.” With aging, the speaker notes, time slows down so that it’s possible to see “dogwood petals ride the wind / like small white butterflies.” Reflections of time gone by arise in “Recurrence,” in which the speaker visits a now-empty childhood home: “The attic window where I viewed, / as if from a castle tower, the pulsing flow / of people’s lives.” The speaker then realizes that “places cannot hoard our memories.” Other works about nature, the elderly, and immortality give way to a small but amusing group of limericks, and then a final section, whose subject matter spans from Advent to Easter. Faith as a refuge is a predominant theme, as expressed in “Safe Harbor,” which describes “angelic voices high above / in the dazzling light of a single star.” The radiant poem “Christmas” celebrates “the friendly glow of lanterns and candles…as visible revelations of / a universal connection to Life.” Schumacher’s poems do a fine job of capturing the beauty found in nature and the emotions one feels when experiencing it. The jump from insightful reflections on aging to the search for a way to talk about immortality is seamless. The collection also offers works with offbeat scenarios, including a compelling exploration of the biblical figure Melchior. A few poems feel light as a feather, but more abundant are those that effortlessly express complicated thoughts.
An engaging collection with luminous language that seeks to explore and reassure.Pub Date: May 11, 2017
ISBN: 9781614935162
Page Count: 82
Publisher: The Peppertree Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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