Set in New York City, the epicenter of the Coronavirus pandemic when it first came to the United States in 2020, these stories all involve masks – cloth masks, surgical masks, N95s, KN95s, you name it; wearing them on the subway, at the grocery, in the post office, outdoors, standing in line, at home.
A review of Resistance Is a Blue Spanish Guitar by George Wallace
Wallace’s voice is compelling and instructive. Parenthetical asides abound, as if he is telling us, in an aside, crucial information to elucidate and amplify his lessons. He can also be funny. “The Real Dookie” is a whimsical poem about the rise and fall of a Beat Poet (“the real dookie”). “Goodbye Angelina” is in the aw-shucks voice of a Texas cowpoke who has been sleeping with the wife of an absent husband.
A review of The Necessity of Wildfire by Caitlin Scarano
It is from gifts of intellectual and creative awareness that a poet can make subtle assertions, even if the gifts have been painfully wrought. Poems in this collection examine emotions of anger, grief, rage, shame and regret, often within careful nature-based metaphors. The poems are rich in description of place and nature that are nonjudgmental and move the collection forward.
A Blight on the Record of a Dead Man: My Interview with Author Bob Freville
I wouldn’t call Bob Freville a hero of mine, but after our exchange, I feel comfortable encouraging others to interface with those whose work they appreciate. The experience has taught me that good artists can be objective about their own work and inviting of alternate opinions.
A Disgusting Fate Befalls Deplorables: A Review of The Filthy Marauders by Bob Freville
This isn’t to say that the characters in The Filthy Marauders aren’t memorable. If anything the opposite is true; Freville’s gift seems to lie in his ability to craft flesh-and-blood eccentrics with voices that are all their own. It is only too disappointing that he has more enthusiasm for their suffering than he does for their redemption.
A review of RBG A to Z by Jo Stewart
Some tidbits are amusing: that serious-faced woman was a high school baton twirler! Her family called her Kiki. She loved a good poppy seed bagel. Ginsburg also stockpiled Notorious RBG shirts, and enjoyed giving them as gifts. One wonders if the Queen of England does the same with tea towels.
A review of The Blue Butterfly by Leslie Johansen Nack
Did W.R. ruin Marion’s life and career? I would say “No.”. She enjoyed a period of stardom like many actors, though her forty-eight films in twenty years were uneven in quality. She married unhappily and drank too much, but she appears to have been a well-functioning alcoholic noted for her philanthropy, especially to children’s charities. At the time of her death she was the richest woman in Hollywood. The title, The Blue Butterfly, suggests sadness, but my view is that she was a rosebud who became a rose.
A review of Masquerade by Carolyne Wright
The writing in Masquerade is erudite, with frequent literary allusions that enrich the poems. From the moment young Wright meets the handsome neighbor to her writing studio, the pheromones are on high alert. In “At First Sight,” she writes of “Kismet’s / metabolic blow-dart” but signals premonition with the final question, “Cupid’s curse / or Caliban’s
Clarity That Could Cut Through Bone: A Review of Listen Mama
Listen Mama is less a traditional memoir and more a compilation of the author’s journal entries, many of which were written at the tender but precocious age of 14. These entries stretch over more than 19 years, covering in real time the heartaches, health problems, and general misfortunes that were thrown at this unfortunate person. What Williams brings to the memoir is a clarity that could cut through bone and a sober reconciliation with the past that can only come with age and knowing.
A review of Scale Model of a Country at Dawn by John Sibley Williams.
Scale Model of a Country at Dawn is an incantation of fluctuating tides and currents, it is an alchemy of stars, horses, ghosts, salt, dreams, and especially prayers. It is an ebb and flow of beautiful lyric poems that carry us over the shifting ground upon which we build our lives, sustaining by its music, but never pretending to a security that no one can promise.