Reviews

Fall 2010

 

 

Burning of the Three Fires by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

BOA Editions, 2010; 96 pages; $16.00
ISBN 978-1-934414-40-8, paper
http://www. www.boaeditions.org

Reviewed by Kryssa Schemmerling

Jeanne Marie Beaumont's third collection of poems, Burning of the Three Fires, opens with a question to the reader: "What is your favorite flower, favorite bird?/I really want you to tell me." The poem, aptly titled "Getting to Know You," continues:

Here's your cup of coffee, your violet-blue crayon,
your miniature iron, your hummingbird… ,
now, friend (if I may call you friend),
let's get to work.

This gesture of inclusiveness prefigures the rest of the book…  Read Review

 

Grassroots: Poems by Jared Smith

Wind Publications, 2010; 78 pages;.$15.00
ISBN 978-1-936138-09-8, paper
www.windpub.com

Reviewed by George Wallace

There's nothing particularly new about poetry written by people who aren't happy with the state of contemporary society and therefore retreat to a rural hideaway of one sort of another. It goes back at least to Wordsworth, who was so disabused of English society, a 'fen of stagnant water' and the ability of the French to ruin a perfectly good Revolution ('Now do I feel how I have been deceived…Faith given to vanity and emptiness'), that he hightailed it back to the Lake District and stewed about things for years.  Read Review

 

Mosquito Operas: New and Selected Short Poems
by Philip Dacey

Rain Mountain Press, 2010; 74 pages; $10.00
ISBN 0-9802211-6-1, paperback
Rain Mountain Press

Reviewed by Jared Smith

A key to fully experiencing this magnificent collection of short poems is that they are not short but multidimensional openings into a complex vision. They are poems of many forms, often flailing and flying erratically and organically, while blessedly lacking traditional linear form and extending far beyond where their physical presence lies. Oh, the traditional formalist will find here sonnets and triolets and Haikus, but such forms can be found in countless books. What makes this collection so enjoyable and rewarding is that these are mosquito operas…they are hardly visible openings into the evening shadows of our universe, carried on translucent wings and quivering self-sustained notes that hook into our fears and delights. And once read they are ever-present, crawling out and taking flight from the everyday experiences of our lives—without fanfare, rising from what surrounds us when the lights are out. They are openings into the apparently trivial, which is in fact at the heart of both our physical and social existence…  Read Review

 

Tony's World by Barry Wallenstein

Birch Brook Press, 2010; 64 pages; $16.00
ISBN 9780978997489, letterpress softcover
http://www.birchbrookpress.info

Reviewed by Steve Koenig

Tony is an everyman with a blade up his sleeve, but he's no Mack The Knife. He's dedicated to his parents, but he's a gadabout, often in unsavory places. His pondering his world is what makes him more than a cad.

Barry Wallenstein has woven together some fifty of his Tony poems, many previously published in magazines and his previous volumes but all revamped, for one richly satisfying world to get lost in.…  Read Review