These piercing poems about firearms cut to the core.
A writer brings poems to a gunfight and gets off more than a few clean shots.
It is a small miracle—and a testament to the author’s versatility—that Sizemore (American Love Poem, 2017, etc.) can write such a wide variety of good poems about firearms. But don’t let the title of his new collection fool you: This is not a celebration of America’s gun culture. It is a lament. The book is dedicated to “all the lives lost to gun violence in the United States, and to all the survivors,” so unsurprisingly, many of the poems read like dirges. Take “Prayer to the Cosmos,” a post-Parkland piece that tries to capture how that tragedy transforms readers: “School buses become potential hearses, / an ambulance but a carrier of bodies / from one panic attack to the next, / a diploma more like a participation trophy / in the obstacle course of a shooting gallery, / as we wring our hands and offer the wind / from our mouths as succor for blue light.” Of course, readers are changed by such bloodshed, whether it causes them to long for a peaceful future or hope to see the gun culture grow. To its credit, this collection imagines both possibilities. To the first, Sizemore writes “Needs of a Gun Enthusiast,” a lyrical, six-stanza poem whose every block begins with the same line: “I don’t need a gun.” In it, the poet gives readers an evocative, streamlined sketch of a life lived fully without firearms. But in the opposite vein, the title poem imagines a world in which guns grow “on trees”: “Is this the utopia we deserve, / land of breath by Russian roulette, / land of nitroglycerin smoke, / black residue left on the fingers / of the firing trigger fist, / land of forests where the wind / through the limbs / sounds like a chorus / of haunted pitch pipe barrels / whistling in the key of apathy?” The message here is clear: a land in which weapons are ubiquitous is no utopia. But in sketching such a possibility with sublimity and grace, Sizemore catches some of the allure of his fatal subject. That this critic of gun culture can communicate—even implicitly—some of its dark appeal renders his appraisals even more effective.
These piercing poems about firearms cut to the core.Pub Date: May 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71868-483-6
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Crow Hollow Books
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.
Heidish (A Misplaced Woman, 2016, etc.) presents an account of St. Francis of Assisi’s life, as told from his father’s perspective in poetic form.
St. Francis is known as a saint who believed in living the Gospel, gave sermons to birds, and tamed a wolf. Over the course of 84 poems, Heidish tells her own fictionalized version of the saint’s journey. In his youth, Francesco is an apprentice of his father, Pietro Bernardone, a fabric importer. The boy is a sensitive dreamer and nature lover who sees “natural holiness in every living thing.” As an adult, Francesco decides to pursue knighthood, but God warns him to “Go back, child / Serve the master.” He joins the Church of San Damiano, steals his father’s storeroom stock, and sells it to rebuild the church. His furious father chains him in the cellar, and the bishop orders Francesco to repay the debt. Afterward, father and son stop speaking to each other; Francesco becomes a healer of the sick and a proficient preacher. After failing to broker a peace agreement during wartime, Francesco falls into depression and resigns his church position. He retreats to the mountains and eventually dies; it’s only then that Pietro becomes a true follower of St. Francis: “You are the father now and I the son / learning still what it means to be a saint,” he says. Heidish’s decision to tell this story from Pietro’s perspective is what makes this oft-told legend seem fresh again. She uses superb similes and metaphors; for example, at different points, she writes that St. Francis had eyes like “lit wicks” and a spirit that “shone like a clean copper pot.” In another instance, she describes the Church of San Damiano as a place in which “walls crumbled / like stale dry bread.” Following the poems, the author also offers a thorough and engaging historical summary of the real life of St. Francis, which only adds further context and depth to the tale.
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9905262-1-6
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Dolan & Associates
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.
A debut volume of poetry explores love and war.
Divided into four sections, Osaki’s book covers vast emotional territories. Section 1, entitled “Walking Back the Cat,” is a reflection on youthful relationships both familial and romantic. “Dying Arts,” the second part, is an examination of war and its brutal consequences. But sections three and four, named “Tradecraft” and “Best Evidence” respectively, do not appear to group poems by theme. The collection opens with “My Father Holding Squash,” one of Osaki’s strongest poems. It introduces the poet’s preoccupation with ephemera—particularly old photographs and letters. Here he describes a photo that is “several years old” of his father in his garden. Osaki muses that an invisible caption reads: “Look at this, you poetry-writing / jackass. Not everything I raise is useless!” The squash is described as “bearable fruit,” wryly hinting that the poet son is considered somewhat less bearable in his father’s eyes. Again, in the poem “Photograph,” Osaki is at his best, sensuously describing a shot of a young woman and the fleeting nature of that moment spent with her: “I know only that I was with her / in a room years ago, and that the sun filtering / into that room faded instantly upon striking the floor.” Wistful nostalgia gives way to violence in “Dying Arts.” Poems such as “Preserve” present a battleground dystopia: “Upturned graves and craters / to swim in when it rains. / Small children shake skulls / like rattles, while older ones carve rifles / out of bone.” Meanwhile, “Silver Star” considers the act of escorting the coffin of a dead soldier home, and “Gun Song” ruminates on owning a weapon to protect against home invasion. The language is more jagged here but powerfully unsettling nonetheless. The collection boasts a range of promising poetic voices, but they do not speak to one another, a common pitfall found in debuts. “Walking Back the Cat” is outstanding in its refined attention to detail; the sections following it read as though they have been produced by two or more other poets. Nevertheless, this is thoughtful, timely writing that demands further attention.
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984198-32-7
Page Count: 66
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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