An illustration of intimate family history that’s a testament to the continuity of Indigenous life and poetics in California.
A poetry collection that speaks of Indigenous culture and history by telling a family’s story through its relation to sea, land, and memory.
Prose poems begin each of the three sections in the collection, establishing its overall themes. “The Gathering” opens the first section, which brings a refreshing perspective to the relationship between Indigenous people and the sea. Like the ocean ebbs and flows, the speaker illustrates her elderly father’s memories and dreams as his health deteriorates: “The old man had been tending the Sacred Fire since before dawn, each branch and limb of oak an added prayer.” As the family is there to support and witness his transition, now the poems remain to honor his legacy. The use of line breaks and extra spacing between words, as in “The White Buffalo Painting,” in which a physically debilitated grandfather yearns to paint the strong buffalo he dreams about, reproduces the pauses made by culture-bearing oral storytellers and invites readers to reflect on other types of gaps being evoked: “Grandfather / born in 1897 / going blind / losing his hearing and / sense of touch / dreams at night / of the White Buffalo.” “The Inland Sea” begins a segment of poems connected to the desert, the land, California roads, and to women, including the speaker’s foremothers. In this section, “Fox Paw and Coyote Blessing” is particularly memorable. Mixing storytelling and wordplay, Valoyce-Sanchez skillfully illustrates belonging to multiple Indigenous backgrounds, challenging monolithic notions of Indigeneity. As with other long poems in this collection, the reader’s visual and sensorial experience might have been enhanced had the poem been reproduced on facing pages. The overall style and themes of this collection are reminiscent of Deborah A. Miranda’s writing in their fluidity and nuanced portrayal of Indigenous life. The last section begins with “The Pictograph,” which refers to ancestral wall art whose physical, but not spiritual, access is blocked by steel bars. These final poems broach the creation and interpretation of worlds through Indigenous lenses.
An illustration of intimate family history that’s a testament to the continuity of Indigenous life and poetics in California.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73453-135-0
Page Count: 84
Publisher: Scarlet Tanager Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A cheeky, gossipy dual biography.
A study of two writers uncomfortably entwined.
After Eve Babitz (1943-2021) died, her biographer Anolik came upon a letter from Babitz to Joan Didion (1934-2021) that startled her. Filled with “rage, despair, impatience, contempt,” it read like a “lovers’ quarrel.” “Eve was talking to Joan the way you talk to someone who’s burrowed deep under your skin, whose skin you’re trying to burrow deep under.” That surprise discovery suggested a “complicated alliance” between the two. In sometimes breathless prose, with sly asides to the “Reader,” Anolik draws on more than 100 interviews with Babitz and many other sources to follow both women’s lives, tumultuous loves, and aspirations before and after they met in Los Angeles in 1967, sometimes straining to prove their significance to one another. “Joan and Eve weren’t each other’s opposite selves so much as each other’s shadow selves,” she asserts. “Eve was what Joan both feared becoming and longed to become: an inspired amateur.” At the same time, “Joan was what Eve feared becoming and desired to become: a fierce professional.” Didion had just won acclaim for Slouching Towards Bethlehem when Babitz, newly arrived from New York, began socializing with her and her husband, John Gregory Dunne. The reticent Didion and the sensual, energetic Babitz could not have been more different, and Anolik clearly prefers Babitz. “I’m crazy for Eve,” she admits, “love her with a fan’s unreasoning abandon. Besides, Joan is somebody I naturally root against: I respect her work rather than like it; find her persona—part princess, part wet blanket—tough going.” Their relationship—hardly a friendship—fell apart in 1974 when Didion and Dunne were assigned to edit Babitz’s autobiographical novel, Eve’s Hollywood. Babitz, resentful of Didion’s attitude and intrusion, “fired” her, pursuing her writing career on her own. Didion soared to literary fame; not, alas, Babitz.
A cheeky, gossipy dual biography.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781668065488
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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