Provocative, explicit poetry written with muscular swagger.
Debut author Stocks’ poems address issues of poverty, masculinity, identity, and more.
In the poem “Fair Play,” the Arkansas-born, Mississippi-raised author describes boxing with a reverence that’s reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway’s attitude toward Spanish bullfighting, making the violent sport seem almost ennobling: “It’s exciting to see men fall in the ring, after giving their all, instead of on battlefields, or murdered in the streets without a choice.” Indeed, the collection is replete with images referencing violence and desperation: “We kill each other over parking spaces / Shoot-up schools, malls, churches / ’cause our little feelings get hurt,” the speaker of “The Emerald City” says in despair, knowing that “Fury runs deep for no real reason” in him and many of his peers. Each poem is written with an almost brutal honesty and directness, exploring such topics as yearning to be a professional football player, being a victim of a stabbing, and coming to terms with an impoverished upbringing in ways that don’t feel confined to the South; when a speaker affirms in “Conjecture” that “Boys grow up to be bastards. Ruthless amnesiacs, / more snaggletoothed and snarling / than any starving beast (indoctrinated into the system),” he could be talking about people anywhere in America. Stocks’ writing has a powerful immediacy, and his poems are packed with both profanity and pop-culture references, as when a speaker notes his aspiration to “feel like Elvis Presley, Marilyn Manson & Judas Priest during their peak touring years.” Occasionally, the language can feel problematic—especially speakers’ occasional use of the N-word. Its apparent aim is to capture the complex rhythms of how his characters talk, think, and feel and to challenge the reader to sort it all out themselves.
Provocative, explicit poetry written with muscular swagger.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2021
ISBN: 9781736841020
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Mindstir Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Sometimes funny, sometimes silly, sometimes quite sad—i.e., an accurate portrait of life in one's 50s.
The further adventures of Candace and her man-eating friends.
Bushnell (Killing Monica, 2015, etc.) has been mining the vein of gold she hit with Sex and the City (1996) in both adult and YA novels. The current volume, billed as fiction but calling its heroine Candace rather than Carrie, is a collection of commentaries and recounted hijinks (and lojinks) close in spirit to the original. The author tries Tinder on assignment for a magazine, explores "cubbing" (dating men in their 20s who prefer older women), investigates the "Mona Lisa" treatment (a laser makeover for the vagina), and documents the ravages of Middle Aged Madness (MAM, the female version of the midlife crisis) on her clique of friends, a couple of whom come to blows at a spa retreat. One of the problems of living in Madison World, as she calls her neighborhood in the city, is trying to stay out of the clutches of a group of Russians who are dead-set on selling her skin cream that costs $15,000. Another is that one inevitably becomes a schlepper, carrying one's entire life around in "handbags the size of burlap sacks and worn department store shopping bags and plastic grocery sacks....Your back ached and your feet hurt, but you just kept on schlepping, hoping for the day when something magical would happen and you wouldn't have to schlep no more." She finds some of that magic by living part-time in a country place she calls the Village (clearly the Hamptons), where several of her old group have retreated. There, in addition to cubs, they find SAPs, Senior Age Players, who are potential candidates for MNB, My New Boyfriend. Will Candace get one?
Sometimes funny, sometimes silly, sometimes quite sad—i.e., an accurate portrait of life in one's 50s.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4726-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Breathtakingly magical.
A powerful homage to the natural world, from England by way of Canada.
Combining poetic words (somewhat reminiscent of Mary Oliver’s poetry in their passion for the natural world) with truly stunning illustrations, this unusually beautiful book brings to readers the magic and wonder of nature. This is not a book about ecology or habitat; this is a book that encourages readers to revel in, and connect with, the natural world. Focusing on a particular subject, whether it be animal, insect, or plant, each poem (rendered in a variety of forms) delivers a “spell” that can be playful, poignant, or entreating. They are most effective when read aloud (as readers are encouraged to do in the introduction). Gorgeous illustrations accompany the words, both as stand-alone double-page spreads and as spot and full-page illustrations. Each remarkable image exhibits a perfect mastery of design, lively line, and watercolor technique while the sophisticated palette of warms and cools both soothes and surprises. This intense interweaving of words and pictures creates a sense of immersion and interaction—and a sense that the natural world is part of us. A glossary encourages readers to find each named species in the illustrations throughout the book––and to go one step further and bring the book outside, to find the actual subjects in nature. Very much in the spirit of the duo’s magisterial The Lost Words (2018), this companion is significantly smaller than its sprawling companion; at just 6.5 by 4.5 inches when closed, it will easily fit into a backpack or generously sized pocket. “Wonder is needed now more than ever,” Macfarlane writes in the introduction, and this book delivers it.
Breathtakingly magical. (Poetry. 6-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4870-0779-9
Page Count: 120
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2020
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