tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28924990280630086662024-02-20T01:43:49.637-08:00Quill & Stylus ReviewsGinny Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559743209125531739noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892499028063008666.post-60368735393654807362020-08-17T13:40:00.000-07:002020-08-17T13:40:48.299-07:00Doom with a View<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Edited by Kristen Iversen, with E.
Warren Perry and Shannon Perry</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Expected publishing date Fall of
2020</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<i>Reviewed by Ginny Short</i></div>
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<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
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Warning: don’t pick up this book
unless you are prepared to be shocked. </div>
<br />
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But frankly, if you happen to live
in the Atomic Age – which, unless you have been sleeping you know that time is
now – you <i>should</i> read this book. I remember learning to duck and cover.
I remember being terrified that we would go up in nuclear smoke. I was born
just upwind of Rocky Flats. I remember. I grew up about 100 miles from the
Trinity Site in New Mexico. I remember. I have spent most of my adult life
within 100 miles of a nuclear plant. I remember. This book jogs my own recollection,
and reminds me that the nuclear reactor that I have lived close to for nearly 40
years, and the atomic skies I grew up under are still a threat, still something
to fear. They are not something to hide, lock up and throw away the key. We have a radioactive history.</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
This book is intense. Some of the
essays are dense with science (I’m still struggling with the concepts of
picocuries and curies), and some of them appeal to the broader public. But each
and every essay sketches a story around the theme of radioactive contamination
and secrecy and the promise of the American Dream. Imagine you are a couple with
a new family. Imagine you have saved and saved and finally have enough for a
down payment on a house. Imagine you buy it. I have neighbors who bought houses
downwind of a series of sand dunes. To them the dunes are demonic: they coat
their streets and yards and golf courses with fine, white sand. There is an odd,
unwritten contract in the buying of a home: unless it is expressly encoded by law, you won’t find in
the fine print the problems the house may have. Like dust. Like radioactive
dust. My neighbors can see the dust and they howl like coyotes. This is
annoying dust. Imagine if you can’t see the dust. Imagine then what it can do
to you, to your family, your friends. But no one has any obligation to warn you
about the dust. Would you howl if you knew your new home was contaminated with
radioactivity that will outlast you for 959 generations to come?</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
This is the story, the
complication, the audacity of Rocky Flats, one of many cold-war sites producing
parts for the nuclear weapons that initiated the Atomic Age. This is a story
that all those who live in our Atomic Neighborhood should read. And make no
mistake, we are all in the Neighborhood as Linda Pentz Gunter’s essay <i>The
Nuclear Power-Nuclear Weapons Connection</i> really makes clear. We are in the
neighborhood, and you may find as you ponder these essays surprising
connections in your own life. I was born 9 miles away from Rocky Flats (and
upwind), just 4 years after it opened. I wonder if my parents knew about
it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They never mentioned it. My Dad worked at White Sands Missile Range – another site of cold war military
expertise - for most of his adult life. He was never allowed to speak about his
work. </div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
I would caution you: some of the
essays are difficult to read. Some because they are dense with scientific
jargon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep going: you can get through these.
(Just remember that a picocurie is one measurement of the rate of decay of uranium:
in one minute it will exhibit 2 decays or disintegrations. Each “decay”
releases radioactive energy called alpha, beta or gamma rays. Each time it releases
energy it bombards surrounding tissue and can damage it. If you inhale a single
particle containing one picocurie of energy, and it lodges in your lungs it
will bombard the surrounding cells twice every minute for the remainder of your
life. If you live 40 more years you will receive radiation exposure 31,540,000,000
times over the course of your life in those cells. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, a soil sample with 50 picocuries contained
therein will decay at 100 times per day. So, if a particle of radioactive
material containing 50 picocuries of energy lodges in – say your lung, it will
continually bombard your lung tissue 100 times a day for the remainder of your
life. Remember that that particle will outlast you.) Needless to say, that is a
lot of radiation focused in a very small area. This is how I digested the information
contained in these essays </div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Read through these. And be
encouraged, many of the other essays will summarize what the geeky scientists
like to read and write. Read through. But be advised, they are all difficult to
read because of the allegations made, and the jumble of facts, and suppositions.
They are difficult to read because of the allegations of cover ups, the disquieting
stories of heroism, patriotism, loss and sacrifice. They are also encouraging:
what better use of art than to illustrate this important
part of our history?</div>
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<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Read on. The final essay is a
wonderful tome on the responsibility we have towards ourselves and future
generations. We don’t want to hide the fact of our nuclear history. This book
is not about blame but about responsibility. This has been part of the problem.
The author of the final essay (Kathleen Sullivan) makes a compelling case for
us to own our nuclear history, claim it, explore it and save it for future
generations. We can’t do that if we don’t know it exists. We already have a
legacy of contaminated land and illness among our people. If we do not own that
history, if we do not think about it, it will continue to silently contaminate our
legacy for 24,000 years...if we survive that long.</div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Ginny Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559743209125531739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892499028063008666.post-75650801315805395522020-03-26T21:03:00.000-07:002020-03-26T21:07:29.689-07:00Be The Artist by Thomas "Detour" Evans<br />
<b>Be The Artist (Fulcrum Books)</b><br />
<br />
<b>Thomas “Detour” Evans</b><br />
<br />
<b><i>Reviewed by Ginny Short</i></b><br />
<i></i><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
If you search Amazon for “art
techniques” you get all sorts of choices, from botanical drawing techniques to
how to do doodle art or paint on stones. Search for “the business of art” and
you get a few choices. It often seems to me that we have a habit of separating
art from business as if the two don’t go hand in hand. So often I remember
hearing young people referred to as “creative” but encouraged to get a degree
in something that will pay the rent. I was one of those. This likely creates a
huge barrier between many a talented artist and success. Evans is trying to
bridge that divide.</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Thomas “Detour” Evans is a Denver
based artist (<a href="http://www.iamdetour.com/">www.iamdetour.com</a>) who,
according to his own self-description, is an all-around creative. The book, he
states, comes out of his own success and his desire to help others become
successful as creatives. Nothing beats a good solid business background to get
there.</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
This book is a highly readable
book. You can read it straight through or you can pick and choose your
chapters. Most of the chapters are applicable to many types of creatives –
writers, actors, visual artists – but a few are really devoted to visual
artists (and no wonder, this is Evans’ main focus.) As a writer I found many of
his suggestions completely apropos to my work. Evans’ presents a chapter with
some thoughtful ideas based on his own experience, then follows with examples,
quotes from successful artists, “homework” or questions for thought and some
suggestions for google searches to broaden your own horizon. I found these
various approaches neat and easy to follow, while stimulating the thought I
think that Evans’ is trying to encourage. This, I think, is the best part of
the book: he is trying to have a conversation. Allow the conversation. </div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
This book is a great introduction
to the business of art. </div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Some of the topics he covers: </div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Mental health for artists (really, really
important!!)</div>
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></span></span></span>Finding your voice.<br />
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>
</span></span></span>How to create a CV, resume and/or artist’s
statement.<br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: &quot; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>Funding, pricing and marketing your work.<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
He fills the book with good
thoughts and insights like “don’t quit your day job” to start with, or encouraging
you to ask and discover your art community (and how valuable that is), to
thinking about your studio space to your legal rights as a artist. The various
topics, while not in depth, gave a really good outline of important topics that
an up and coming artist should consider, as well as tips on how to get more
info or go deeper into each topic.</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Finally, the book provided good
inspiration from the words of successful artists. These quotes are scattered
around the book and each was worth savoring. This book is a really solid
background in the business of art, simple yet concrete. I enjoyed the
conversation.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Ginny Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559743209125531739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892499028063008666.post-20759506286696244052020-03-21T19:52:00.003-07:002020-03-21T19:52:37.176-07:00What you have heard is True by Carolyn Forche<b>
</b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Review of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What You Have Heard Is True</i></b></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>By Carolyn
Forché</b></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Penguin Press 2019</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Review by Ginny Short</span></div>
<br />
A mentor in one of my nonfiction workshops at Regis,
University once advised me to “Think like a poet, write like a novelist and
tell the truth.” I’ve thought about this often, sometimes with puzzlement,
sometimes with despair. How does one do this?<br />
<br />
Then I read this book. Carolyn Forch<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é succeeds so well in this prescription that I could not put
the book down. The story is that of a young woman who is recruited as a witness
during the civil war in El Salvador. Conscripted is the right word, and yet it
is not. Ms. </span>Forch<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é
was approached by an El Salvadorian National, Leonel Gomez Vides in 1977, who
invited her to come to see his country. It is a puzzling and interesting
relationship. When asked why he was approaching her he responded, “Because of
your poetry book, and Maya’s<a href="file:///H:/Dropbox/MyWriting/Book%20Reviews/What%20You%20Have%20Heard%20Is%20True.docx" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
letter. She told me all about you.” Because she is a poet.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my
view, this book justifies his choice of a poet for his witness. The book is a
beautifully told story of her experience of El Salvador and its people, the
country and the human rights violations that she witnesses. She tells her story
and that of the people she Leonel introduces her to. The elusive Leonel (“…too
mysterious for most people,” says Maya. “…it is also possible that he is with
the CIA” Maya’s father opines) approaches her and invites her to visit El
Salvador, a crazy idea that </span>Forch<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é
is drawn to. Once in El Salvador – and not always certain why she is there –
she is taken step by step into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seeing</i>
the world around her. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is
a book about seeing, and isn’t that what witnessing is? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To see and attest to a fact or event, someone
who knows something, sees something. It is easy to forget – as we are surrounded
by our SUVs and country gardens and Starbucks on every corner that not everyone
lives the way we do. In these days of rising tempers around the issue of
migration, it is good to remember that other places are not like ours. This
witness is not limited to time, but is as relevant today as it was to the
events Ms. </span>Forch<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é
is drawn into. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
world she is drawn into is both beautiful (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">From
the high steps, the market stalls were a flotilla roofed by market tents like
sails, white and hard to the wind, luffing at the edges, bright and taut, and
beneath them people moved like schools of fish in the swells of commerce</i>)
and terrifying (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“What happens to the
unlucky?” “What happens? They are disappeared. The become desaparecidos. We
don’t know after that, unless the corpse is found and even then we don’t know
because they are, how do you say it? Beyond recognition”</i>). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Forch<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é’s text is lyrical and moving, and she brings to us the
reminder the power of story. This one reminds us of the need to be aware, to
pay attention, and to not take our lives for granted. She brings to the
conversation the need for empathy, the need to remember that we are all part of
the same and that we are responsible, we are part of the problem. She impresses
with the need to witness, more than the fact of her own act of witnessing. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<a href="file:///H:/Dropbox/MyWriting/Book%20Reviews/What%20You%20Have%20Heard%20Is%20True.docx" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> Maya was a friend of Ms.
Forch<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">é’s and Leonel Vidas’
cousin.</span><br />
</div>
</div>
Ginny Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559743209125531739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892499028063008666.post-24040108472031333832020-02-13T20:03:00.001-08:002020-02-13T20:03:17.896-08:00Book notes: Listening to the Savage: River Notes and Half-hear Melodies by Barbara Hurd<br />
Hurd, Barbara. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Listening
to the Savage: River Notes and Half-heard Melodies. </b>Athens: University of
Georgia Press. 2016.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
“There is scarcely anyone writing
better about the natural world than Barbara Hurd,” says Alan Cheuse of NPR.
Hurd, a writing professor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, writes here
about the Savage, a river that she knows and explores, but also about music and
sound and how we hear and what this tells us about ourselves and our world.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Her granddaughter says, “I used to
think adults were smart,” and reading this suggests we need to get a lot
smarter, not just about the world around us but about ourselves. Hurd explores everything
from narcissism to Bach and entices the reader to see herself in a new and
humbling way.</div>
<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This book
was truly inspirational. Like Rod Saner, she is smart and succinct, making
connections with herself and her world in clear and whacky ways. I loved how
she brought her granddaughter into the discussions with the wisdom of a
five-year old teaching us how to think more clearly about ourselves, our world.
I loved the connections Hurd made, the way she thought through her writing,
building steps and bridges and connections. Brilliant book. Brilliant writer.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Ginny Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559743209125531739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892499028063008666.post-68929220742265974542019-06-18T18:03:00.001-07:002019-06-18T18:18:06.975-07:00Book Review: A History of Too Much<b>by Adrianne Kalfopoulou</b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Publication Date: April 2018.</b><br />
<b>Red Hen Press</b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Review by Ginny Short</b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>Adrianne Kalfopoulou’s most
recent work is a collection of poetry that draws the reader into a disquieting
yet tender exploration of her adopted country and her father’s ancestry. She
moved to Greece as a young scholar and has loved, lived and raised a daughter
there. Becoming a part of this European world, but viewing it from afar as
well, this curious and sometimes precarious relationship provides an unusual
and intimate view into a country stricken by crippling hardship in the wake of
the financial crisis of the 2000’s that left no one untouched. </b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>The poems are startling and
vivid, tender and brutal. The book is divided into three sections. Rather than
section titles Kalfopoulou underscores the groupings with epigrams that
foretell just how much of “too much” you will move through in that section.</b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>Section One starts with a
quote from Tomas Transtromer’s work, “Further In.” We are warned: you will come
in further than what you would choose by design. In the opening poem
Kalfopoulou says, “After so much grief, the darkness has seeped into our
dreams.” Here she juxtaposes the beautiful with the baleful, the dream with the
waking. “Carpets of lavender from the Easter Trees, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paskalies</i>/and their aroma cover our broken pavements,/our streets
where the homeless sleep.” What is real and what is dream? They overlap so
seamlessly in this poem that, like the poet, you can’t help but wonder.</b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>The poems in this section
wander from the historical, to the present, mapping the ground of Greece’s
past: its conquerors, its resistances, its pride. From the extravagance of a
country groaning under the weight of its own richness (“There is too much here,
the sapphire, the thistle/the oregano blooms in June”) <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>to the extravagance of its own passions (“Revolution
is a sacred word/in Greece, it means there are always ways to resist”) to the
rich color and feelings of its people (“She’s used to passionate disappointments,/too
used to them to care if you’ll love her or forget her.”) You want to flee, but
flee where? <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Kalfopoulou asks. We find
under her keen gaze that there is nowhere to flee.</b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>The second section starts
with Italo Calvino asking “But how can we hope to save ourselves in that which
is most fragile?” Here we travel in to what is most brittle, starting with our own
thin and delicate skin, she explores the depth and translucence of our most
vulnerable selves.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“My father is almost
tender as his skin turns the color of browned leaves” and “I would notice my
skin – the spotted browns of crusting leaves that marked my flesh like his…” Kalfopoulou
unapologetically displays her own vulnerability as she talks frankly about her
own difficult relationships of opposition with her father, her friends, lovers and
her country. And yet she also poises us at our most vulnerable moments, when
children grow, when lovers die, when countries can’t escape the memories of
things past. One of the most poignant poems in this section tells about a man
who missed a flight and his bewilderment, his lostness “is a kind of
premonition,” says Kalfopoulou. A sense of the loss of the things that help us,
hold us up, keep us moving, pervades. “The wound is an eye,/also a mouth,
always an opening.” Kalfopoulou says in the poem that ends this section. We are
left with the sense of deep longing, and a realization that whether people open
their purses or close their eyes, this generosity doesn’t ever really stop, but
it doesn’t really heal the wounds, either.</b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b><span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">The final section starts
with a quote from Monica Sok’s “Nocturne:” World/throw it off then! Throw
it!/It doesn’t matter what covers you when the sky sleeps./In the light you are
a dangerous place.” The opening poems throws the doors wide to the tragedy
unfolding with the refugees that have amassed on</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;">Greek shores. I know that
Kalfopoulou has worked with these stricken groups to give succor to these human
souls, and her heartbreak shines like moonlight in this poem: Dust, fairytale
pollen, winds of the Sahara, dust coating the people like a weight, the “spring
at the end of fairytales.” Her chilling reminder at the end that “we forget
that Scheherazade began each Arabian Night to save her life.”</span></b></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>“Coming Down the Mountain
Before Dark” reminds us that we can journey as fast as we want to get to where
we think we are going, but “how unexpectedly all falls to dark” but despite the
thrill, the adrenaline, “the threat, like sex/and felt a sudden thrill,
remembered/a praying mantis, the bee it caught/inside a blossom’s heart – it
ate with such intent,/consumed the body till there was nothing left:” a wise
warning of our own complexities. </b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>The penultimate poem is a
series of micro-vignettes of a country in turmoil. Should you buy toilet paper
or olives? The cicadas still sing, people still complain and life goes on.
Woven in between the grocery store and the lines at the bank is a micro story
of a girl writing a story of her mother’s rape and murder. You can’t help but
wonder if maybe rape is something other than what it appears to be. “Grief,”
Kalfopoulou says, “will keep you reaching back/for what is not there.”</b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0px;"><b>This is a wonderful,
luminous and hopeful book in spite of its theme of “too much”; it shows us we
never have enough love, enough empathy. There is never too much of that. </b></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Ginny Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559743209125531739noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892499028063008666.post-68665035231905069592019-01-26T17:16:00.000-08:002019-01-26T17:17:48.374-08:00<br />
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<b>T<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">he Imagist Poem</span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">William Pratt, ed.</span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">Review by Ginny Short</span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">www.ginnyshort.com</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">The
Imagist movement took place primarily in the years 1908-1917, a movement which
William Pratt describes and explains in his thorough introductions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His purpose in writing this book was to
showcase this movement which gave birth to the modern poetry form we recognize
today as “free verse.” His introduction(s) provides a thorough backdrop to understand
and approach the revolutionary change that this movement brought to English
verse. According to Pratt, no poet of the modern era is untouched by this
movement, founded by Ezra Pound, H.D. Richard Aldington and F.S Flint with significant
influence by an number of other poets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">The
“rules” of the imagist form were simple, as dictated by one of the chief
protagonists of the movement, Ezra Pound, and consisted of three main elements:
1) concrete words showing verbal images, 2) verbal economy and brevity, and 3)
verbal rhythm through free verse.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Influenced by Greek and Japanese and French poetry, the Imagist movement
changed the face of English verse.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This
book brings together a critical overview of the fundamental principles of the
form as well as a compilation of poems that illustrate the main principles of
the genre.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">This
book acts, in a poetic sense, as a biography of an era, an era of change and
violence, a world torn by the first world war, and an upheaval of poetry and
art, and presents a simplified overview and sampling of some of the best of the
movement that changed the world of poetics.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>This is an anthology, so unlike a work that may have a single theme
running through the poems, this does not, unless you count the fact that each
of these represents a snapshot of an “image” as seen and described by its observer/poet.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thus “imagism” is the theme that runs
through, and the wide range of subjects and concentrations is delightful and
stimulating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">Most
of the poems are short – a hallmark of the Imagist form – but each one is a
window into the mind of the poets that populate this volume.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Greek references and cadences flow through
many of the poems (“Dorian Girl”, “Hermes of the Ways”, “Lesbia”, and “Venus
Transiens”). Japanese influence is less obvious (though evident in Pound’s
work), but its spare verse is apparent (“Ts’ai Chi’h”, “Curfew”, and “Autumn
Rain”). There is very little simile employed in these works, but a great deal
of metaphor, again a hallmark of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imagistes</i>.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Each poem pinpoints a single moment or image
and describes that, concentrates on it, if you will.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">Each
of the poets is unique.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>T.E. Hulme uses
very simple language to describe his vision: of beauty, death, and lovely
vignettes of nature.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His poem “The Poet”
strikes me particularly.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Here he
describes the artist both in nature and in mind, in imagination seeing the world
around him, bringing them in to the “smooth table”, or clear, smooth mind and
arranging, rearranging, dreaming them into a poem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">F.S.
Flint, on the other hand, uses language that is more elevated, lofty and his
poems are longer with a bit more pathos.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>“The Beggar” shows a mean, degraded individual who creates beauty from
his suffering: “wind from an empty belly/wrought magically/into the wind.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">The
poetry of Ezra Pound shows a wider diversity than the others and is perhaps why
he was considered the leader of this group.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Obvious Greek and Chinese/Japanese imagery and syntax abound in these
works. “In a Station of the Metro” contains only two lines: these are succinct
and direct and very Japanese, very Zen. One of my favorites is
Gentildonna.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Gentildonna is an Italian
word for gentlewoman. In this poem she “passed” which could mean she died or
she passed by. Now those who walk in the world where she once walked and was
not noticed, now these “endure” a gray world without sunlight.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is a sad poem, but the images are graphic
and gripping.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I am personally drawn to
the Japanese influence more that the Greek or Italian.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is obvious Pound studied Japanese or
Chinese texts.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>His “Fan-Piece” is
clearly oriental in both its subject and its diction: clear, sparse, and
delicate. In three lines one can see the lady set aside by the lord, the fan
stands in as her surrogate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">I
particularly liked Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a
Blackbird”.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This poem contained a series
of vignettes in which blackbirds appeared.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is striking how one thing can
evoke so many different emotions and take so many different stances, and Steven’s
classic piece does this masterfully, evoking thought and feeling. Reading e.e.
cummings brings me to my original romance with poetry: it was he who first
captured my poetic imagination.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The way
he plays with form is fun and meaningful.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>His <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1(a</i> simply shows a leaf
falling, and ends with an archaic word “oneliness” which simply means the state
of being one. e.e. cummings is known for his word play and word imagery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">Although
the term “free verse” is used to describe the imagist ideal, it was interesting
to note the wide variety of forms used by the artists.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Many were strictly free, but “forms” were
used as well.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>All of the examples of
Adelaide Crapsey’s work was in the form known as cinquain, while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1(a</i> by e.e. cummings was written in the
style known as calligram, or “shaped” poem. Some poems exhibited rhyme, or were
written as couplets.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is an
illustration of the further examination of the credo, which Pratt states as the
“form should spring from the inner control of the impression or image” and is
not simply without form.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">One
of the precepts of the imagists, according to Pratt, was that the symbolic
meaning should be inherent in the image and not be forced onto it.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I believe these examples succeeded in showing
that. This I believe is one of the precepts of Zen thought, and is part and
parcel of every image herein.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;">Pratt
states that the imagist concept was aimed at concentration on and illumination
of an image, to use clear and precise language to do so without the use of
rhetoric or sentimentality. Over all, the poetry here was startling in its
imagery, and inspirational in its complexity and simultaneous simplicity…I was
delighted to read these. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The wide range
of focused images, from people to fish to lizards to landscapes shows an
inspirational variety of effects and ways to use images. This will be a book I
will return to again and again!</span></div>
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5488888888888888888888888888888888886Ginny Shorthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559743209125531739noreply@blogger.com0