info
Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
October 2022 MBR The Poetry Shelf
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Midwest Book Review
Nov 2, 2022, 11:07:05 PM11/2/22
to
The Poetry Shelf
Almost A Memoir
M.C. Rydel
https://mcrydel.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639884438, $16.99
https://www.amazon.com/Almost-Memoir-M-C-Rydel/dp/1639884432
The poems in Almost A Memoir represent metaphysical reflections of the end of life, immortality, and destiny. They will especially delight poetry readers who choose this book for these themes and their literary exploration. The subjects are provided in sections of chapters (an unusual format for a poetry presentation) that both divide and define the works, creating a linked series of investigations that are striking in their reflections of life, death, and living in-between these states.
Almost a Memoir lives up to its name with its progressive chronicle of relationships and experiences. The collection opens with a cautionary note in "Months of Immortality": "Everyone in my family/Dies during the month of October./You've got to know that about us/Before you get involved." As the chapters evolve, moving readers from the author's life experiences to those of others, poetry readers will appreciate both the free verse's astute reflections and the psychological analysis embedded in scenarios that range from life changes to family relationships.
One such example is "Fabric of Coincidence": "We've exposed the fabric of coincidence./Space and time like warp and weft/Guarded by three phantoms of fate./The first specter spins the thread of life/From her distaff onto the spindle./The second measures the thread with care./The third cuts the thread as it unravels/With her abhorred shears and assures us/Of an identical demise on different continents."
More so than most collections, these poems work as a unit, building a continuity of analysis that assumes the form of autobiography, the plot of a novel, and the impact of literary analysis. These poems have achieved the level of performance art since 2010, and have been presented as spoken word poetry in urban bars, bookstores, theatres, and coffeehouses. Their appearance here, in print and under one cover, offers a fine opportunity for absorbing a narrative of life, relationships, and evolving perceptions of what it means to at once be moral and immoral, both on paper and in life.
Libraries strong in contemporary poetry representations, especially those that move from performance art to the written page, will find Almost A Memoir a fine example of this process and its impact. Creative writing discussion groups will ideally utilize it as an example of contrasting delivery devices between spoken and written word.
But Still, Music
Anne Pitkin
Pleasure Boat Studio
www.pleasureboatstudio.com
9781737052036, $16.00
https://www.amazon.com/But-Still-Music-Anne-Pitkin/dp/1737052032
But Still, Music is a poetry collection that gives readers a flavor of the South. It follows Anne Pitkin's childhood growing up as a privileged white girl and into an adulthood where she was to lose her grown child. Segregation, distancing, and loss assume different forms in these poems, which create close connections between past and present, injecting this Southern childhood into the progression of events and future lives.
"Mockingbird" is one such journey: "I heard the mockingbird/the day my mother died, and I was free/of the last attachment./That day, the sun clamored/into the windows of the mausoleum/our old home had become." From the dogwood tree which "shivers with the sun" during a visit back home, to a newly compromised mother, to the elusive cedar waxwing birds which so enthralled her own mother ("My mother, who tried to throttle her one life/into a shape she could live with,/loved them, their spots of red/signaling catastrophe or passion/pulsing behind the ordered world - waxwings/descending from the heavens."), Pitkin's evocative reflections on the sights, sounds, and connections that formed her life and continue to influence it are moments of time captured in the amber of poetic wordsmithing.
From journeys abroad to the intersection between human and natural worlds, readers receive works that resonate: "I keep coming back to it - /an empty field and the cracked frozen stream beside the one tree/missing half its branches, casting a crooked shadow./I'm drawn by an emptiness I understand now - " Life is a "work in progress," with the signposts of experience and direction all around us.
They are particularly haunting in this collection, which documents a long journey and its ultimate impacts and epitaphs: "There you've been, loves of my life./There you've changed me, one by one,/all of you, in the one place, bizarre music rioting,/shells and telephones whispering."
The powerful, highly recommended collection that is But Still, Music should ideally be made part of any discussion group interested in contemporary poetry reflecting place, time, and life monuments. It doesn't just narrate. It sings.
The Carcass Undressed
Linda Eguiluz
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639882649, $15.99
https://www.amazon.com/Carcass-Undressed-Linda-Eguiluz/dp/1639882642
The Carcass Undressed links body parts to matters of the heart and soul, is organized into three sections (The Body, The Bones, and The Heart), and uses these focal points to 'undress' the emotions connected to each. Each section represents an opportunity to observe the narrator and examine self, considering a woman's evolving identity crisis and connections to her physical and psychological profile.
"Another Me" is one poetic example of possibilities in alternative living and reacting to life: "There's another me,/not exactly lurking and not quite as exhilarating/as the performance which I am about/to give." As Linda Eguiluz moves through her life and times, readers receive insights and opportunities to consider her connections, transformations, and identity.
Each poem represents a transformative opportunity to reconsider self, womanhood, and life. Each excels in thought-provoking bigger-picture inspections, as in "A Good Wife": "When you are taught/to worship men,/honoring yourself/feels quite off script."
Contrast this with the feeling and knowledge of another woman who becomes an unwitting part of an affair in "A Hundred Hours in a Year": "I still remember the moment you looked at me/from across the table, next to your beautiful wife,/next to your beautiful children, and decided I/was no longer a child, and I that you were insane."
These hard-hitting, reflective poems capture both transformative events and the little moments in life where stepping back becomes a driving force to observation and realization. Each poem connects inner body workings with deeper inspections of psychology, philosophy, and a woman's progress through life.
Especially highly recommended for women's literature libraries, The Carcass Undressed bares its soul in a manner that will make it attractive not just to women's literary collections, but discussion groups revolving around women's issues and lives.
Lies of an Indispensable Nation
Lilvia Soto
https://lilviasotowrites.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639883837, $17.99
https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Indispensable-Nation-Lilvia-Soto/dp/1639883835
The poems and essays comprising Lies of an Indispensable Nation: Poems About the American Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are literary representations of social, political, and military quandaries that take an unusual approach in blending an analysis of terrorism with a poetic inspection of its real roots. These roots lie in Jimmy Carter's presidency; in choices made which changed relationships between the U.S. and other nations and gave birth to a form of terrorism that culminated in, rather than being born on, 9/11; and which document ten years of a warped double war that set the stage for the world today.
In choosing the literary form rather than a nonfiction inspection, Lilvia Soto's work holds the potential to reach a very different audience than the usual political analysis piece. Her essays about her scholarly research blend well with poetic, more emotional reflections of rage and dismay, creating a contrast in lives and experiences that captures sentiments and perspectives from many different vantage points.
From the legacy of conflict conducted on foreign soils and brought on by 'barbarians' from supposedly-civilized worlds to the build-up of monstrous deceptions and disconnections between truth and falsehood perpetuated by leaders with a vested interest in fostering rhetoric, Soto creates a powerful condemnation of events. This approach recreates history to point out its failure to reflect reality.
These poems reflect this reality as perceived by those who were impacted by events that reached out to change their worlds. "You will have/all the days of your life/to ask yourself what happened." Unlike many similar-sounding analyses, Soto's work holds no pat answers. Indeed, it captures the legacy of revolutionary thought and action as the decades pass: "We talked through the night,/Steinem, Friedan, de Beauvoir,/Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King./Intoxicated with possibility,/we dreamed, signed protests,/sharpened our pencils."
The act of writing Lies of an Indispensable Nation is a revolution in and of itself. The revelation lies in the act of reading it, to absorb the precedents of where America is today in the world. Libraries interested in poetry, political inspection, and literature will find Lies of an Indispensable Nation a powerful acquisition. It ideally will move beyond literary readers and into political and social issues circles, where its words and reflections will benefit from debate and discussion groups.
Sway
Tricia Johnson
https://triciajohnsonpoet.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639884209, $16.99
https://www.amazon.com/Sway-Tricia-Johnson/dp/1639884203
Sway is a book of poems as firmly rooted in Pennsylvania as it is in nature, offering readers the opportunity to settle down in the "patterns and rhythms" of time and place, as the book's title poem introduces and so aptly states.
The imagery and "you are here" sense that this introductory title poem introduces ("The soft rustle of cotton fabric/Brushing against the body, clothespins in hand/With gentle wind gusts/As the shirt slowly dries on the clothesline") is part of the homespun feel of a collection that circumvents seasons and feelings with equal dexterity.
Mirrored in her descriptions of nature and place are striking juxtapositions of personal and natural position that lead readers to consider their own relationships with the world: "I am the elements and something more/The unique points of rainbow, sparkle through crystal suspension." As delicate webs of words unfold like a spider's creation, some impacts are immediate, while others simmer in the mind, to be recollected later.
Above all, a sense of "happy peacefulness" permeates this collection, which may be, in these pandemic times, its greatest strength and gift. Readers who imbibe will immerse themselves in all of Pennsylvania's seasons, from the quiet snowfall of winter to the experience of its contemplative opportunities: "Nighttime magic/Deep with life, quiet/Alone in the shelter of the full cold moon/Oak tree sentinels/Primal fire/Goodbye to past,/cleanse/Fire cheeks."
The resulting all-seasons celebration of connections to the world is highly recommended for libraries seeking contemporary free verse poetry rooted in nature and a sense of place. Sway's impact will ideally be discussed not just among poetry and literary circles, but by readers interested in experiencing feeling interconnected and one with nature.
Weightless, Woven Words
Umar Siddiqui
https://uniquelyumar.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639884704, $12.99
https://www.amazon.com/Weightless-Woven-Words-Umar-Siddiqui/dp/163988470X
Weightless, Woven Words presents poetry about the workings of the mind and its connections to the human condition, firing its words with the desperation and meditative experiences of mental health and illness as Umar Siddiqui explores the inner world of self and connections to love, God, and the human condition.
The book's division into seven categories does not coincide, as readers might expect, with the emotion-laden subjects they deliver. Rather, these separations serve as boundaries to set the parameters for concepts that restate the connotations of words, phrases, and conditions.
Take the peaks and valleys of "Desperation," the opening section, for one example. Readers might anticipate a dark and brooding piece, from its title, but Siddiqui injects a sense of wonder and observation into many of his works that swing from despair to recognizing opportunity and the emotional connections between these states: "Meadows to frolic in don't mean much,/When it's not what I want,/For I don't know what to do but this hunch,/Of my mind makes me ask what?" The style of these poems may be described as lyrical - but without the confinement of rhythmic structure that dictates form be created and followed uniformly within even the poem itself, much less the collection as a whole.
When Siddiqui adopts a classic rhyming tradition, he often breaks loose of it mid-point, leaving readers to focus as much on the words and emotions within as their poetic structural impact. In a nutshell, he demonstrates a flair for following poetic rules -- then breaks them. This act in itself challenges readers to absorb the unexpected in works that are driven by emotion, contemplation, and an experience created by the form and presentation of the poems themselves.
The result is a gathering that should be considered by libraries looking for strong examples of contemporary poems, but which should equally be of interest to readers of psychological works of inspection, who can use this collection to probe their own psyches and connections to evolutionary thinking and analysis.
A Land Between Worlds
John Mack
www.life-calling.org
PowerHouse Books
https://powerhousebooks.com
9781648230080, $75.00, HC, 210pp
https://www.amazon.com/Land-Between-Worlds-Shifting-Landscape/dp/1648230083
Synopsis: After a four-year journey - flying more than 300,000 air-miles aboard over 200 flights, driving over 15,000 miles with the aid of over 25 car rentals, including hiking over 220 miles, 7 helicopter charters, 6 seaplane charters, 8 grizzly sightings, and 1 husky sled-poet and with the publication of "A Land Between Worlds: The Shifting Poetry of the Great American Landscape", photographer John Mack returns with evidence of some of America's most iconic, natural sites and their current state of deterioration vis a vis the proliferation of smart devices and the encroaching virtual environment.
In an attempt to shed light on the current state of our nature, Mack completes what he calls a "reconnaissance mission," having crisscrossed the entire United States of America. Covering a land with length from Maine to Hawaii, a depth from the southern bend of Texas to the far reaches of Alaska's arctic circle, "A Land Between Worlds" shares Mack's vision of who we are in relation to our environment and looks for clues as to whether or not a balance between nature and today's increasingly seductive technology can be attained.
Critique: A coffee-table style volume (9.75 x 1.5 x 13.25 inches, 3.04 pounds), "A Land Between Worlds: The Shifting Poetry of the Great American Landscape" is a blending of both exquisite b/w and full color photographs set with elegant verse. The result is a browsing experience that will have particular and contemplative attraction for readers with an interest in nature poetry and landscape photography. One of those unique and memorable books that will linger in the mind and memory long after it has been finished and set back upon the shelf, "A Land Between Worlds: The Shifting Poetry of the Great American Landscape" is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library collections.
Editorial Note: Thinker, artist, photographer and poet, John Mack (https://johnmack.org/) shares the poetry of nature as a counterpoint toward a world that is every day becoming all the more dependent on digital devices and algorithmic feeds. In 2021 Mack founded Life Calling Initiative, a not-for-profit aimed at helping society to live fulfilled lives in the digital age while retaining our humanity and personal autonomy. This is achieved through a diverse set of tools and activities, including, but not limited to, awareness campaigns, education, art, lectures, and programming.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no funds from authors or publishers. Full permission is given to post any of these reviews on thematically appropriate websites, newsgroups, listserves, internet discussion groups, organizational newsletters, or to interested individuals. Please give the Midwest Book Review a credit line when doing so.
The Midwest Book Review publishes the monthly book review magazines "California Bookwatch", "Internet Bookwatch", "Children's Bookwatch", "MBR Bookwatch", "Reviewer's Bookwatch", and "Small Press Bookwatch". All are available for free on the Midwest Book Review website at www (dot) midwestbookreview (dot) com
Anyone wanting to submit books for review consideration can send them to:
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
To submit reviews of any fiction or non-fiction books, email them to Frugalmuse (at) aol (dot) com (Be sure to include the book title, author, publisher, publisher address, publisher website/phone number, 13-digit ISBN number, and list price).
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
Almost A Memoir
M.C. Rydel
https://mcrydel.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639884438, $16.99
https://www.amazon.com/Almost-Memoir-M-C-Rydel/dp/1639884432
The poems in Almost A Memoir represent metaphysical reflections of the end of life, immortality, and destiny. They will especially delight poetry readers who choose this book for these themes and their literary exploration. The subjects are provided in sections of chapters (an unusual format for a poetry presentation) that both divide and define the works, creating a linked series of investigations that are striking in their reflections of life, death, and living in-between these states.
Almost a Memoir lives up to its name with its progressive chronicle of relationships and experiences. The collection opens with a cautionary note in "Months of Immortality": "Everyone in my family/Dies during the month of October./You've got to know that about us/Before you get involved." As the chapters evolve, moving readers from the author's life experiences to those of others, poetry readers will appreciate both the free verse's astute reflections and the psychological analysis embedded in scenarios that range from life changes to family relationships.
One such example is "Fabric of Coincidence": "We've exposed the fabric of coincidence./Space and time like warp and weft/Guarded by three phantoms of fate./The first specter spins the thread of life/From her distaff onto the spindle./The second measures the thread with care./The third cuts the thread as it unravels/With her abhorred shears and assures us/Of an identical demise on different continents."
More so than most collections, these poems work as a unit, building a continuity of analysis that assumes the form of autobiography, the plot of a novel, and the impact of literary analysis. These poems have achieved the level of performance art since 2010, and have been presented as spoken word poetry in urban bars, bookstores, theatres, and coffeehouses. Their appearance here, in print and under one cover, offers a fine opportunity for absorbing a narrative of life, relationships, and evolving perceptions of what it means to at once be moral and immoral, both on paper and in life.
Libraries strong in contemporary poetry representations, especially those that move from performance art to the written page, will find Almost A Memoir a fine example of this process and its impact. Creative writing discussion groups will ideally utilize it as an example of contrasting delivery devices between spoken and written word.
But Still, Music
Anne Pitkin
Pleasure Boat Studio
www.pleasureboatstudio.com
9781737052036, $16.00
https://www.amazon.com/But-Still-Music-Anne-Pitkin/dp/1737052032
But Still, Music is a poetry collection that gives readers a flavor of the South. It follows Anne Pitkin's childhood growing up as a privileged white girl and into an adulthood where she was to lose her grown child. Segregation, distancing, and loss assume different forms in these poems, which create close connections between past and present, injecting this Southern childhood into the progression of events and future lives.
"Mockingbird" is one such journey: "I heard the mockingbird/the day my mother died, and I was free/of the last attachment./That day, the sun clamored/into the windows of the mausoleum/our old home had become." From the dogwood tree which "shivers with the sun" during a visit back home, to a newly compromised mother, to the elusive cedar waxwing birds which so enthralled her own mother ("My mother, who tried to throttle her one life/into a shape she could live with,/loved them, their spots of red/signaling catastrophe or passion/pulsing behind the ordered world - waxwings/descending from the heavens."), Pitkin's evocative reflections on the sights, sounds, and connections that formed her life and continue to influence it are moments of time captured in the amber of poetic wordsmithing.
From journeys abroad to the intersection between human and natural worlds, readers receive works that resonate: "I keep coming back to it - /an empty field and the cracked frozen stream beside the one tree/missing half its branches, casting a crooked shadow./I'm drawn by an emptiness I understand now - " Life is a "work in progress," with the signposts of experience and direction all around us.
They are particularly haunting in this collection, which documents a long journey and its ultimate impacts and epitaphs: "There you've been, loves of my life./There you've changed me, one by one,/all of you, in the one place, bizarre music rioting,/shells and telephones whispering."
The powerful, highly recommended collection that is But Still, Music should ideally be made part of any discussion group interested in contemporary poetry reflecting place, time, and life monuments. It doesn't just narrate. It sings.
The Carcass Undressed
Linda Eguiluz
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639882649, $15.99
https://www.amazon.com/Carcass-Undressed-Linda-Eguiluz/dp/1639882642
The Carcass Undressed links body parts to matters of the heart and soul, is organized into three sections (The Body, The Bones, and The Heart), and uses these focal points to 'undress' the emotions connected to each. Each section represents an opportunity to observe the narrator and examine self, considering a woman's evolving identity crisis and connections to her physical and psychological profile.
"Another Me" is one poetic example of possibilities in alternative living and reacting to life: "There's another me,/not exactly lurking and not quite as exhilarating/as the performance which I am about/to give." As Linda Eguiluz moves through her life and times, readers receive insights and opportunities to consider her connections, transformations, and identity.
Each poem represents a transformative opportunity to reconsider self, womanhood, and life. Each excels in thought-provoking bigger-picture inspections, as in "A Good Wife": "When you are taught/to worship men,/honoring yourself/feels quite off script."
Contrast this with the feeling and knowledge of another woman who becomes an unwitting part of an affair in "A Hundred Hours in a Year": "I still remember the moment you looked at me/from across the table, next to your beautiful wife,/next to your beautiful children, and decided I/was no longer a child, and I that you were insane."
These hard-hitting, reflective poems capture both transformative events and the little moments in life where stepping back becomes a driving force to observation and realization. Each poem connects inner body workings with deeper inspections of psychology, philosophy, and a woman's progress through life.
Especially highly recommended for women's literature libraries, The Carcass Undressed bares its soul in a manner that will make it attractive not just to women's literary collections, but discussion groups revolving around women's issues and lives.
Lies of an Indispensable Nation
Lilvia Soto
https://lilviasotowrites.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639883837, $17.99
https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Indispensable-Nation-Lilvia-Soto/dp/1639883835
The poems and essays comprising Lies of an Indispensable Nation: Poems About the American Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are literary representations of social, political, and military quandaries that take an unusual approach in blending an analysis of terrorism with a poetic inspection of its real roots. These roots lie in Jimmy Carter's presidency; in choices made which changed relationships between the U.S. and other nations and gave birth to a form of terrorism that culminated in, rather than being born on, 9/11; and which document ten years of a warped double war that set the stage for the world today.
In choosing the literary form rather than a nonfiction inspection, Lilvia Soto's work holds the potential to reach a very different audience than the usual political analysis piece. Her essays about her scholarly research blend well with poetic, more emotional reflections of rage and dismay, creating a contrast in lives and experiences that captures sentiments and perspectives from many different vantage points.
From the legacy of conflict conducted on foreign soils and brought on by 'barbarians' from supposedly-civilized worlds to the build-up of monstrous deceptions and disconnections between truth and falsehood perpetuated by leaders with a vested interest in fostering rhetoric, Soto creates a powerful condemnation of events. This approach recreates history to point out its failure to reflect reality.
These poems reflect this reality as perceived by those who were impacted by events that reached out to change their worlds. "You will have/all the days of your life/to ask yourself what happened." Unlike many similar-sounding analyses, Soto's work holds no pat answers. Indeed, it captures the legacy of revolutionary thought and action as the decades pass: "We talked through the night,/Steinem, Friedan, de Beauvoir,/Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King./Intoxicated with possibility,/we dreamed, signed protests,/sharpened our pencils."
The act of writing Lies of an Indispensable Nation is a revolution in and of itself. The revelation lies in the act of reading it, to absorb the precedents of where America is today in the world. Libraries interested in poetry, political inspection, and literature will find Lies of an Indispensable Nation a powerful acquisition. It ideally will move beyond literary readers and into political and social issues circles, where its words and reflections will benefit from debate and discussion groups.
Sway
Tricia Johnson
https://triciajohnsonpoet.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639884209, $16.99
https://www.amazon.com/Sway-Tricia-Johnson/dp/1639884203
Sway is a book of poems as firmly rooted in Pennsylvania as it is in nature, offering readers the opportunity to settle down in the "patterns and rhythms" of time and place, as the book's title poem introduces and so aptly states.
The imagery and "you are here" sense that this introductory title poem introduces ("The soft rustle of cotton fabric/Brushing against the body, clothespins in hand/With gentle wind gusts/As the shirt slowly dries on the clothesline") is part of the homespun feel of a collection that circumvents seasons and feelings with equal dexterity.
Mirrored in her descriptions of nature and place are striking juxtapositions of personal and natural position that lead readers to consider their own relationships with the world: "I am the elements and something more/The unique points of rainbow, sparkle through crystal suspension." As delicate webs of words unfold like a spider's creation, some impacts are immediate, while others simmer in the mind, to be recollected later.
Above all, a sense of "happy peacefulness" permeates this collection, which may be, in these pandemic times, its greatest strength and gift. Readers who imbibe will immerse themselves in all of Pennsylvania's seasons, from the quiet snowfall of winter to the experience of its contemplative opportunities: "Nighttime magic/Deep with life, quiet/Alone in the shelter of the full cold moon/Oak tree sentinels/Primal fire/Goodbye to past,/cleanse/Fire cheeks."
The resulting all-seasons celebration of connections to the world is highly recommended for libraries seeking contemporary free verse poetry rooted in nature and a sense of place. Sway's impact will ideally be discussed not just among poetry and literary circles, but by readers interested in experiencing feeling interconnected and one with nature.
Weightless, Woven Words
Umar Siddiqui
https://uniquelyumar.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9781639884704, $12.99
https://www.amazon.com/Weightless-Woven-Words-Umar-Siddiqui/dp/163988470X
Weightless, Woven Words presents poetry about the workings of the mind and its connections to the human condition, firing its words with the desperation and meditative experiences of mental health and illness as Umar Siddiqui explores the inner world of self and connections to love, God, and the human condition.
The book's division into seven categories does not coincide, as readers might expect, with the emotion-laden subjects they deliver. Rather, these separations serve as boundaries to set the parameters for concepts that restate the connotations of words, phrases, and conditions.
Take the peaks and valleys of "Desperation," the opening section, for one example. Readers might anticipate a dark and brooding piece, from its title, but Siddiqui injects a sense of wonder and observation into many of his works that swing from despair to recognizing opportunity and the emotional connections between these states: "Meadows to frolic in don't mean much,/When it's not what I want,/For I don't know what to do but this hunch,/Of my mind makes me ask what?" The style of these poems may be described as lyrical - but without the confinement of rhythmic structure that dictates form be created and followed uniformly within even the poem itself, much less the collection as a whole.
When Siddiqui adopts a classic rhyming tradition, he often breaks loose of it mid-point, leaving readers to focus as much on the words and emotions within as their poetic structural impact. In a nutshell, he demonstrates a flair for following poetic rules -- then breaks them. This act in itself challenges readers to absorb the unexpected in works that are driven by emotion, contemplation, and an experience created by the form and presentation of the poems themselves.
The result is a gathering that should be considered by libraries looking for strong examples of contemporary poems, but which should equally be of interest to readers of psychological works of inspection, who can use this collection to probe their own psyches and connections to evolutionary thinking and analysis.
A Land Between Worlds
John Mack
www.life-calling.org
PowerHouse Books
https://powerhousebooks.com
9781648230080, $75.00, HC, 210pp
https://www.amazon.com/Land-Between-Worlds-Shifting-Landscape/dp/1648230083
Synopsis: After a four-year journey - flying more than 300,000 air-miles aboard over 200 flights, driving over 15,000 miles with the aid of over 25 car rentals, including hiking over 220 miles, 7 helicopter charters, 6 seaplane charters, 8 grizzly sightings, and 1 husky sled-poet and with the publication of "A Land Between Worlds: The Shifting Poetry of the Great American Landscape", photographer John Mack returns with evidence of some of America's most iconic, natural sites and their current state of deterioration vis a vis the proliferation of smart devices and the encroaching virtual environment.
In an attempt to shed light on the current state of our nature, Mack completes what he calls a "reconnaissance mission," having crisscrossed the entire United States of America. Covering a land with length from Maine to Hawaii, a depth from the southern bend of Texas to the far reaches of Alaska's arctic circle, "A Land Between Worlds" shares Mack's vision of who we are in relation to our environment and looks for clues as to whether or not a balance between nature and today's increasingly seductive technology can be attained.
Critique: A coffee-table style volume (9.75 x 1.5 x 13.25 inches, 3.04 pounds), "A Land Between Worlds: The Shifting Poetry of the Great American Landscape" is a blending of both exquisite b/w and full color photographs set with elegant verse. The result is a browsing experience that will have particular and contemplative attraction for readers with an interest in nature poetry and landscape photography. One of those unique and memorable books that will linger in the mind and memory long after it has been finished and set back upon the shelf, "A Land Between Worlds: The Shifting Poetry of the Great American Landscape" is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library collections.
Editorial Note: Thinker, artist, photographer and poet, John Mack (https://johnmack.org/) shares the poetry of nature as a counterpoint toward a world that is every day becoming all the more dependent on digital devices and algorithmic feeds. In 2021 Mack founded Life Calling Initiative, a not-for-profit aimed at helping society to live fulfilled lives in the digital age while retaining our humanity and personal autonomy. This is achieved through a diverse set of tools and activities, including, but not limited to, awareness campaigns, education, art, lectures, and programming.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no funds from authors or publishers. Full permission is given to post any of these reviews on thematically appropriate websites, newsgroups, listserves, internet discussion groups, organizational newsletters, or to interested individuals. Please give the Midwest Book Review a credit line when doing so.
The Midwest Book Review publishes the monthly book review magazines "California Bookwatch", "Internet Bookwatch", "Children's Bookwatch", "MBR Bookwatch", "Reviewer's Bookwatch", and "Small Press Bookwatch". All are available for free on the Midwest Book Review website at www (dot) midwestbookreview (dot) com
Anyone wanting to submit books for review consideration can send them to:
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
To submit reviews of any fiction or non-fiction books, email them to Frugalmuse (at) aol (dot) com (Be sure to include the book title, author, publisher, publisher address, publisher website/phone number, 13-digit ISBN number, and list price).
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
0 new messages