Stranger on the Shore
One of my earliest memories includes the Stevie Wonder classic “I Just Called To Say I Love You." In the memory, my mom is driving us somewhere in her grey Dodge Omni, which I remember as being only slightly larger than my three-year-old self. The seats were roasting the back of my legs, the way they did in the mid-80’s before most cars had AC.
Eject City
As I write this it is the beginning of December and a season that, while joyous to so many, for others is a source of pain. My wife died from cancer this past July and I am currently trying to figure out how our family will celebrate the holidays deprived of her. It won’t be easy, I know that much. Occasions and relationships with family are often arduous struggles. This is something that Jason Morphew reminds us of in his book, Eject City.
Some Birds
I was thrilled to see that this book was released by a local press here in Seattle. Goldfish Press is run by Koon Woon, a poet of almost legendary stature in this corner of the Pacific Northwest. Not only did Woon publish Some Birds, he also collaborated with George Held on the content. You see, each page of the book contains a short poem by Held about a different bird and a corresponding picture of the same bird selected by Koon Woon. This combination of poem and image makes the book more than your typical collection of verse. Often it feels like you are paging through an important work of ornithology.
My Body Lives Like a Threat
Megha Sood’s first full-length poetry collection, My Body Lives Like a Threat (Flowersong Press, 2022) is a powerful exposé of universal problems that have reached epic proportions. From the ongoing trauma of racism, war, xenophobia, sexism, and body-shaming, Ms. Sood’s words take us on a journalistic journey divided into five sections: Black Truth, War and Peace, My Body Is Not An Apology, A Just Immigration Policy, and My Body Lives Like A Threat. Do not expect sunshine and flowers. Ms. Sood’s poems are realistic and tough. Her words cut deep, exposing the wounds inflicted by hatred and prejudice.
Presto
Having worked on both sides of the temp divide, I was eager to read Presto, a flash fiction collection by Charles Rammelkamp that recounts the narrator’s many temp experiences, and the “real life” they accompanied, sometimes as foreground, sometimes as background. It’s a bemused, open-eyed journey by a young man seeking his place in the work world of several years ago, before the gig economy expanded this kind of work to encompass an entire sector of society.
Good Housekeeping
Whether you enjoy them or not, chores and errands are a part of life. Most of these tasks are completed with the purpose of maintaining some kind of home. However, home is such an important place that we rarely think about it. This is the place where we eat, sleep, raise our kids, store our most cherished belongings, practice our religion, and more. Thus, it is a place that must be maintained. But because we are so often in our home, it is difficult to consider its broader meanings and implications. In his new chapbook Good Housekeeping, Bruce E. Whitacre offers a space in which to meditate on the various visions of home.
If This Isn’t Love
Telenovelas, like cockroaches, will probably always be with us. These passion-filled soap operas from Latin markets have been a staple of pop culture—spoofs on SNL, fandom gone mad in Naples, where according to the New York Times, figurines of characters from “Mare Fuori” (“Beyond the Sea”) are becoming a standard part of the famous Neapolitan creche market. Their followings are so loyal and so large they may be the last refuge of scripted television.
Susana H. Case frames her most recent book, If This Isn’t Love, with thirteen poems devoted to the telenovela. Being a fellow poet on the New York reading circuit and familiar with her recent books, I know Case frequently uses real-life phenomenon as a skeleton in her books. For example, her most recent collection, The Damage Done, is a gripping sequence of poems tracing the life of a fictional victim of 1960’s FBI COINTELPRO corruption. It reads like a thriller. Her fondness for noir and the seasoned truth-telling of been-there-done-that is modulated in this book by a lively humor, a wider warmth, making it a smart, entertaining, and moving collection.