An optimistic, wise collection that offers the pleasures of discovery.
In a country inundated with political and social ugliness, a nationally curated poetry anthology forefronts the beautiful.
For poet, critic, and editor Lomax, a poem can be many things. This anthology features entries from poets from every state and, pointedly, the United States’ inhabited territories and commonwealths. Each contributor provides a “found poem” that conveys what they find beautiful. In short, Lomax asked each writer to engage in “witnessing, not creating.” A couple of poets chose work by others, but several chose photographs, news articles, and social media screenshots. Each work includes the rationale for its submission. Many revered poets participate, including Eileen Myles, Jericho Brown, and Dorothea Lasky, but there are several lesser-known writers hailing from as far as Cameroon and South Korea. The location and text appear on the left and the image on the right; this is a welcome layout concept since more abstract images require context for readers to effectively see what the poet is seeing. The anthology’s theme, Lomax writes, is partially in response to the Trump presidency and its lingering assault on our ability to connect with the beauty around us; through beauty we can “heal the wrongdoing at hand.” Some works reflect on a memory that addresses multiple issues, like race, identity, and ingenuity; for example, Brown’s entry for the state of Georgia is short but affecting. He provides the phone number of a figure known as “Hustle Man” whose numerous professions make him “an example of the everything black folk will do to survive.” Tiphanie Yanique of the U.S. Virgin Islands chose a screenshot that celebrates the YA novel Hurricane Child (2018) by fellow Virgin Islands writer Kheryn Callender that explores queerness, climate change, and the legacy of colonization without resting on tropes. This is an untraditional offering, and entries range widely in type and scope; the collective effect is both peripatetic and profound.
An optimistic, wise collection that offers the pleasures of discovery.Pub Date: April 7, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9850219-6-7
Page Count: 145
Publisher: Gualala Arts
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
PERSPECTIVES
An exquisitely original celebration of American Blackness.
A potent series of “notes” paints a multidimensional picture of Blackness in America.
Throughout the book, which mixes memoir, history, literary theory, and art, Sharpe—the chair of Black studies at York University in Toronto and author of the acclaimed book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being—writes about everything from her family history to the everyday trauma of American racism. Although most of the notes feature the author’s original writing, she also includes materials like photographs, copies of letters she received, responses to a Twitter-based crowdsourcing request, and definitions of terms collected from colleagues and friends (“preliminary entries toward a dictionary of untranslatable blackness”). These diverse pieces coalesce into a multifaceted examination of the ways in which the White gaze distorts Blackness and perpetuates racist violence. Sharpe’s critique is not limited to White individuals, however. She includes, for example, a disappointing encounter with a fellow Black female scholar as well as critical analysis of Barack Obama’s choice to sing “Amazing Grace” at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in a hate crime at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. With distinct lyricism and a firm but tender tone, Sharpe executes every element of this book flawlessly. Most impressive is the collagelike structure, which seamlessly moves among an extraordinary variety of forms and topics. For example, a photograph of the author’s mother in a Halloween costume transitions easily into an introduction to Roland Barthes’ work Camera Lucida, which then connects just as smoothly to a memory of watching a White visitor struggle with the reality presented by the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. “Something about this encounter, something about seeing her struggle…feels appropriate to the weight of this history,” writes the author. It is a testament to Sharpe’s artistry that this incredibly complex text flows so naturally.
An exquisitely original celebration of American Blackness.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780374604486
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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