Tag Archives: book review

Ross Gay’s Inciting Joy: Essays

Posted on by
Reply

In Inciting Joy, Ross Gay suggests that finding common ground in our sorrows creates joy. That joy creates solidarity and love, and possibly, our future survival. Thus, these essays emphasize repeatedly our connection to everything and everyone around us in the present moment and our connection to both the past and future.

Rejecting the capitalistic notion of pervasive scarcity and ownership, Gay emphasizes community, gratitude, and sharing. He finds these in a community fruit orchard without locked gates, in a basketball court where everyone is a guest, in a university classroom where grades and learning objectives are set aside, and in cover songs that carry on through time without being owned by a given singer, among other places.

That said, Gay, the bestselling author of The Book of Delights and four volumes of poetry that received several prestigious awards, is at heart a poet, and these essays also clearly evidence his love of language, wordplay, and rhythm. Even his choice to refer to everyone by their first or nickname creates another subtle sense of our connectedness. In short, these essays offer a new, thought-provoking way to view our society and future.

Originally published on San Francisco Book Review.)

Karen Armstrong’s Sacred Nature

Posted on by
Reply

In Sacred Nature, Karen Armstrong brings a theological perspective to our impending climate crisis. She argues that we currently perceive God, humanity, and nature as three separate, essentially unrelated entities. When we see nature as separate from both humanity and God, it becomes easier to dominate and abuse. Armstrong, however, returns to the roots of some of our oldest religions – Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam – to find an earlier understanding of this relationship in which the creative life force some term God infuses both nature and humanity with humanity is integrally tied to nature. By seeing everything and everyone as infused with the sacred, Armstrong hopes we may find a path forward to avert the approaching climate disaster.

A former Catholic nun and author of numerous books on religion including The Case for God, A History of God, Islam, Buddha, and The Great Transformation, Armstrong presents a fascinating, well-researched, and cogent argument for rethinking our currently dominant, theological paradigm. Those readers concerned with the future of the human race can only hope Armstrong’s call for change will be heeded before it is too late.

(Originally published on Manhattan Book Review.)

Gillian Jerome’s Nevertheless: Walking Poem

Posted on by
Reply

In Nevertheless, Gillian Jerome walks through life in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her eyes wide open. She takes in everything: the freckles on a dying loved one’s head, the man asleep on the sidewalk with a half-eaten pork bun, her own vivid dreams, the oak leaves which are the color of tangerines, a man drawing a totem, a woman with a swollen foot surrounded by irises and poppies, and thimbleberries and western anemones. Through these and other observations, Jerome explores grief, separation from her partner, friendship, marginalized communities, mistreatment of indigenous people, new love, environmental degradation, and the maturing of her child, among other topics. In all of it, be it good, bad, sad, or bittersweet, Jerome finds beauty, meaning, and poetry. Along the way, she crafts some unforgettable lines: “Sometimes your heart’s a wavelength, the only arrhythmia of the night—” or “where I sat for elongated minutes in the quiet lake glimmering in the gold-green August light.” Nevertheless is a delight to read and a delight which readers may find themselves reaching to savor over and over again.

Originally published on Manhattan Book Review.

Kirsten Miller’s The Change: A Novel

Posted on by
Reply

The Change: A Novel by Kirsten Miller

n the small, coastal community of Mautauk, three women discover they possess latent, supernatural powers, which suddenly surge to life as they go through menopause.

Like her grandmother, Nessa hears the voices of the dead crying out until they find peace. Jo, a former high-powered executive forced to contend with patronizing men, discovers that rage and hot flashes give her extraordinary strength and heat. Harriett, who faces both her husband’s infidelity and the glass ceiling of her male-dominated advertising firm, magnificently transforms into a green goddess serving out ingenious revenge.

When they realize that the police refuse to investigate a possible serial killer who preys on young girls from impoverished backgrounds, Nessa, Jo, and Harriet know what they must do.

Without doubt, The Change is an extreme feminist fantasy. However, it is also delightful, sarcastic social commentary and very possibly just what we need. In a world that sickeningly resembles The Handmaiden’s Tale, Kristin Miller has written the perfect antidote. When it all becomes too much to take, turn off the news and social media and curl up with this novel. It will provide a respite and the energy to fight on.

(Originally published on Manhattan Book Review.)

Kimberly Kralowec’s We retreat into the stillness of our own bones

Posted on by
Reply

We retreat into the stillness of our own bones
by Kimberly Kralowec

Kimberly Kralowec’s new chapbook is a delight. Like a Kandinsky painting, Kralowec renders a hazy, dream-like space, unconstrained by the conventional, which permits the reader to drift almost untethered through three sections of untitled poems. At the same time, the clarity and freshness of the imagery, at moments reminiscent of Neruda, grounds the reader: “When your breath / embosses my skin, I lose track of color – / the shade between the minutes, the dye / between the days[.]” Fundamentally, these are love poems, and Kralowec conjures a world outside time and space in which two people find refuge in and exist only for each other. The result is, at times, achingly beautiful: “We are so safe together, we barely / need to wear a thing – / even our own skins. Can we still exist – / this unbound?” Still other lines will haunt the reader long after finishing this tiny tome: “Between dusk and night, / my dress became the color of rain doves – / or the heat of a fire that burns / but never consumes.” In sum, We retreat is a potent debut that will leave readers lingering over its rich imagery and maybe longing to find their own all-encompassing love.

(Originally published in the Inflectionist Review.)