You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘review’ tag.
I’m happy to say that my review of A Sunday in God-Years, by Michelle Boisseau, is published in the latest issue of PLEIADES: A Journal of New Writing. Volume 30.2 has plenty of great work in it, as usual, and it’s certainly a pleasure to be printed in the same pages as many of these writers (Sherman Alexie!). It’s a particular pleasure to have my review appear just after one from my friend, the amazing B.J. Hollars. Incidentally, he also has a review of Bigfoot appearing today on 300 Reviews.
While I always enjoy the work in PLEIADES, I especially enjoyed this issue’s opening poem, “Sisyphus” by Jay Leeming. Yes, it’s true, I take a bit of a shining toward anything sisyphean, but this poem delivers more than your standard mountain & boulder routine. There is the rock, of course, and the incline, and Leeming primes us for an event by starting the poem at what we should expect to be the zenith!–at the moment when the speaker is about to collapse. And what a wonderful moment it is: “…my whole body shakes / like a struck bell…” (I won’t quote further, because it’s a short and excellent poem that deserves to be read on the page, but I had to share that resonant image as soon as I read it.) Without spoiling the development of the poem, I’ll say something more: unlike the motion of many rewrites of the myth of Sisyphus, where the plummeting of the stone signals a descent back into hell, Leeming’s poem presents a descent back into life! Joy, communion, celebration! A deft reversal, and done in ways to which my description serves little justice. The point is that I love the poem, and I am happy to see it lead off my contributor’s copy.
You can find PLEIADES available in cool bookstores, and even some not so cool ones. Give it a gander, should you find the opportunity.
You don’t have to be as batty as Frank Lloyd Wright to give a damn about how we use public space or to care about how we design our communities. And I’m certainly not about to start preaching the democracy of architecture, the politics of design (though maybe of aesthetics), or the hegemony of stucco. Still, I do think it’s important to think critically about the spaces we inhabit, the ways we use them, and what they tell us about our society. As such, I’ve written a review of “The Pedestrian Thoroughfare” that I hope you’ll find the time to read.
Of course, there are more and better critics of public space out there, so it’s worth some further reading if you’re interested in the subject. As for myself, I really owe my thinking on the subject to brief introductions by my friend and former colleague Wendy (thanks, Wen!).
Now everyone get out there and WALK!
Since it’s spring, and since I’ve moved over to WordPress, I’m trying to make some improvements to ye olde blog, with better links in the sidebar, for example. One thing I planned to do was link to some reviews I’ve written in the recent past. You can see them trying to look inconspicuous over on the LEFT (I hope to move the sidebar over to the RIGHT eventually, though, once I feel motivated enough to pay for custom CSS). You’ll find two reviews published with Zoland Poetry, and one with my former colleagues over at The Black Warrior Review. Check them out if you get the time, at least for the magazines that host them if not for the reviews themselves.
But I have to say I had a funny surprise as I was pulling up the links to the reviews. Searching Google for “Jeremy Hawkins Dismal Rock” to jump directly to my review of Davis McCombs’ book, I was startled to see a Wikipedia page appear in the search results, #2 as a matter of fact! It turns out that the Davis McCombs entry in Wikipedia quotes from my review. It’s a strange quote to pull, as well, just taking the first three sentences, before I even have much of a chance to say anything substantial. A later quote might have demonstrated a much more negative view of the book, and would make the other review against which mine is juxtaposed stand in stronger relief. (The quote chosen may also highlight a factual error I made in my review! See if you can find it.) While I think of it, I should say that McCombs is a fine poet, even if I was highly critical of Dismal Rock; my critique fell more squarely on the nature of the collection itself.
In any case, I’m not so illustrious as to have my own Wikipedia entry, but I’ve made my splash. I’d say it’s time to pack up and call it quits; what else do I have to acheive after this?!
