In his introduction, Clanton says, “Approachable poetry is what I write,” and most readers will agree, though the...
Clanton’s collection of poetry spans decades of work and surveys a range of subject matter and emotion through pleasing images and flights of fancy.
The first poem, “Geometry of Clouds,” ends with the directive from its flight attendants “not to dare / to find patterns in what we cannot hold, and / not to fall in love with the transient air.” Clanton’s poems, and poetry in general, the work suggests, is meant precisely for that—to help its readers find those patterns, to invite them to fall in love with fleeting things. And therein lies poetry’s worth, as Clanton shows his reader again and again, in poems that express, through a compelling combination of transcendence and sensuality, underlying themes of both letting go and holding on. From bedrooms to kitchens to big skies and city streets, these poems find narrators highly observant of the world around them and constantly seeking ways to connect that world to an inner life, as in the last notes of “Orange Julius, 1972”: “taut memory / poured like pulpy orange sweetness in our eyes.” Clanton’s book is rife with such unexpected and delightful rhetorical moves emboldened by a clear command of lyric and line. The accumulation of these poems, however, becomes repetitive, likely for a number of reasons, including the limitations of a very similar first-person narrator as well as a parallel quality of setting and subject matter. Throughout these collected explorations, there is a heightened sense of optimism at the oddities life presents. Such a view is enlivening, but without components of levity to anchor it, it becomes a challenge to become fully invested in the world of these verses.
In his introduction, Clanton says, “Approachable poetry is what I write,” and most readers will agree, though the approachability sacrifices the depth found in a more carefully organized and varied collection.Pub Date: July 29, 2010
ISBN: 978-1449042806
Page Count: 144
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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