An elegant and evocative compilation by a contemplative poet.
Churchill’s posthumous poetry collection offers memories and observations of a life cut short.
Although the late author wrote the poems in this book between her diagnosis in November 2010 and her death just even months later, their subject matter spans decades of her life. Reflecting on her youth in “Phyllip, the boy next door,” she muses, “We used to have such dreamy dreams.” “Our Lady of Angels” hints at her being a victim of bullying in a parochial school. She recalls moving from Chicago to Berkeley, California, as an adult, where “everything was a first.” “Augenblinck” consists of snapshots of major milestones: menarche, marriage, remarriage, and death. Aging ushers in health struggles, and in her 50s, she underwent a mastectomy: “I traded my left breast for life” (“Barn Swallows”). In the wake of her ALS diagnosis, she admits to having “fallen in love with my bed” (“Not long for the world”). She recounts her father’s hospitalization after a garage-door accident in “My Father,” which left him “a stranger in a hospital bed / pie-faced, shaved, cologned.” However, the gloriousness of nature is also a strong throughline in Churchill’s work. When a tree in a neighboring yard comes down, she observes in “Respiration” that “a hundred thousand / listening leaves / give off the last / of their life-giving oxygen.” These poems are alive with sensory details, such as “the wet slap / of gasping sunfish and bluegills / on the floor of the old Chevrolet” (“How Like a Serpent”). Occasionally, she falls into passive constructions in lines such as “cricket is captured in a stone lantern / carried carelessly by an old man” (“Dreams”), which weakens the poems’ impact, overall. Also, the inclusion of slurs such as “Chinaman” and “Jewgirl,” while reflective of the way bigots used to talk, don’t effectively add to a feeling of authenticity. Editor Butterworth, the poet’s spouse, offers a notes section and a brief biography thatmight have been improved by a stronger edit.
An elegant and evocative compilation by a contemplative poet.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9798888386125
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Finishing Line Press
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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