Tag: poetry

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The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

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With inspiration taken from Arthur Mee’s turn of the century work called The Children’s Encyclopedia, “that cared nothing about alphabetization,” Chad Faries wrote The Book of Knowledge.  Like The Children’s Encyclopedia, this little volume of poetry represents “a tapestry of complete knowledge,” embracing everything from cartography to sexuality to regional history (in this case, Iron County, Michigan) to animals and the avant-garde.  Published by the puckish literary upstart calling itself The Vulgar Marsala Press, the Book of Knowledge has four sections with abundant illustrations peppered throughout. Faries possesses a poetic voice intellectual, eccentric, and playful.  Despite his PhD in Creative … Continue reading The Book of Knowledge by Chad Faries

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My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing by Eric G. Wilson

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Within the confines of 85 pages, Eric Wilson’s My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing offers a cornucopia for the aspirant writer.  The tiny book defies conventional categories, much like its subject, William Blake (1757 – 1827).  A Blake biography, a creative writing manual, and a map of influences, epigrams, and philosophy all come into play. William Blake was a poet and artist living in the Britain, who, like his contemporary the Marquis de Sade (1740 – 1814), lived between the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic Era.  Blake grew up as a Christian Nonconformist and struggled with making … Continue reading My Business Is to Create: Blake’s Infinite Writing by Eric G. Wilson

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Brothers in Arms: The Story of Al-Qa’ida and the Arab Jihadists by Camille Tawil

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“I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.” Patton (1970), screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola. “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things … I would not refer to him as a dictator.” Vice President Joe Biden (2011) “God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them … Continue reading Brothers in Arms: The Story of Al-Qa’ida and the Arab Jihadists by Camille Tawil

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The Evil Garden (1965) by Edward Gorey

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Victorian stock characters get attacked by carnivorous plants and animals. The drawings have a simplicity matched by the rhyming couplets that explain the terrors illustrated for our enjoyment. The poetry conjures up nursery rhymes and like nursery rhymes, they veil the fangs and claws of Nature. Gorey’s slim volume is reminscent of the playful chaos of “Alice in Wonderland” and has a curdled humor like Max Cannon’s “Red Meat.” Continue reading The Evil Garden (1965) by Edward Gorey

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Critical Appraisal: The Landscape of Hell

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The representation of Hell as a cartographic region has its origins in Dante’s Divine Comedy.  Dante adapted the imagery already present in medieval painting and sculpture to comment on his political situation and his own scientific and theological beliefs.  He populated it with real people, including political heroes and villains, good popes and bad popes, adulterous princesses, and monsters human and mythological.  On Dante’s spiritual journey, he traveled with the Roman poet Vergil down the various circles of Hell and then up Mount Purgatory.  Finally, led by his beloved Beatrice, he journeyed through the heavenly spheres until he was in … Continue reading Critical Appraisal: The Landscape of Hell

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Essays on Capital, First Series: Essay One

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Essay 1: Capital and the historical moment From commodities to citizens. O garment not golden but gilded, O garden where all men may dwell, O tower not of ivory, but builded By hands that reach heaven from hell; O mystical rose of the mire, O house not of gold but of gain, O house of unquenchable fire, Our Lady of Pain! “Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs)”, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1866) The Civil War: Revolution in Labor Relations The Civil War ended in 1865 bringing about the cessation of hostilities between the United States and the Confederacy.  After four years and … Continue reading Essays on Capital, First Series: Essay One

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Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard

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The appreciation of a novel can occasionally come down to something as random as timing.  When one reads a book too early or too late, one can miss important elements within the story.  This reviewer read Lord of the Rings too late and found its cod-archaic prose akin to downing a sedative.  Similarly, when reading Paradise Lost in middle school, the only thing gained was “bragging rights” since the poetry remained impenetrable.  All this represents a roundabout preface for my appreciation of Georgeann Packard’s novel Fall Asleep Forgetting. In the months leading up to September 11, 2001, the inhabitants of … Continue reading Fall Asleep Forgetting by Georgeann Packard

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The Cantos by Ezra Pound, A Critical Appraisal

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I: The Mount Everest of Modernism “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary The Cantos.  Ezra Pound.  The very mention of those names send shudders down even the most well-read literary snob.  T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” seems like a small indentation in comparison.  The only work with comparable difficulty and lit crit caché is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.  Reading these works carries along serious bragging rights.  “I saw the new Terrance and Philip movie.  Now who wants to touch me?” Eric Cartman said in the South Park movie. As a reader … Continue reading The Cantos by Ezra Pound, A Critical Appraisal

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Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa

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“The jawbone of an ass. A shank/braided with shark teeth. A garrote.” So begins Yusef Komunyakaa’s new book of poems, simply called Warhorses. The slim volume confronts uncomfortable topics like wars, death, and atrocity. Written in a stripped-down primal language, it subverts the violence of its subject matter. Komunyakaa’s mastery and precision has been rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier volume, Neon Vernacular (1994). To read the entire review, click here. Continue reading Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa

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