A vivid, compelling collection by an erudite poet.
A wide-ranging volume of poetry explores mythological figures, relationships, and the natural world.
Upton marries past with present, myth with reality, and ideas with emotions in this collection of poetry. Greek mythological characters feature heavily in the book. She depicts the murder of Hyacinth and takes on the voice of rape victim Danaë. Actaeon and Eurydice merit their own poems as well. Nature is another prominent theme. Upton considers noisy insects that “give the tree a voice” and wonders if it is fair to trick forsythia into believing it’s spring by placing it before a sunny window. Two sacks of mushrooms given a week apart inspire the poet to ask: “What other gifts are wasted on us?” The sight of a centipede in the shower prompts her to ponder: “How strange we must seem / to God. How sometimes we must / frighten him, how he must wish we would just / crawl away.” Intense religious moments, such as the stone in front of Jesus’ tomb being rolled away, and biblical figures, like Adam and Eve, are jumping-off points for other poems. As the book draws to a close, the author’s personal relationships become more prominent. In “The Blanket,” the poet considers her roles as a daughter and a mother and the ways they overlap. Upton is an austere but evocative writer. She details how the “milkweed blossoms / fade as if antique”; the way a willow “slouches as if it were in a classroom”; and the “pine’s greenness / frosted like a forged dollar bill.” The author is well read, as evidenced by references to everything from Shakespeare and Rilke to Shirley Jackson. Upton is also insightful; she wonders why “we give our hours away” to actors “as if our hours aren’t magnificent” and notes that “privacy is a kind of power.” Her honesty is unflinching, but she also injects humor into her work. In “Why Am I Not Invited to Your Party?” she recalls how she used to dance “like someone being stung / by ferocious bees.” The only time she goes too far is when she describes how “steam hisses off the oiled husks of him” and “flesh / slides to his ankles like a stocking” during the satyr Marsyas’ skinning. But even then, it’s hard to fault her for such skillful writing.
A vivid, compelling collection by an erudite poet.Pub Date: March 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781947817500
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Saturnalia Books
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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