I expected to like this anthology, since I’m a Feminist and all too aware how often women’s views are tuned out, tossed aside, or punished. I was in tI expected to like this anthology, since I’m a Feminist and all too aware how often women’s views are tuned out, tossed aside, or punished. I was in the first coed class at the University of Virginia, just one year after Princeton allowed women through the door. And it doesn’t take a mastermind to notice that most books (especially those published before the 1970s) were written from a male perspective, just as medicine is given a male slant, most world mythologies, religious books, well, just about everything in our world reflects what men think or want. This does NOT mean that male poets were turned away from this project. A good number of enlightened men also joined us in this compilation.
As I said, I knew I’d like it, but I wasn’t expecting to LOVE it. I generally prefer poetry books by a single author, because it’s too difficult to remember such a huge list of contributors as this book has. The collection far exceeded my expectations, both in quality, pleasure, and compass (almost 400 pages of poems)! I didn’t realize that Volume II is close on its heels. I was proud to have a poem included, but even more wowed by how many of my poet friends and favorite poets joined me. I was especially fond of the retelling of nursery tales and mythology.
For those of you who think Feminism is a cuss word (well, I doubt you’re reading these reviews), the writing is not male bashing. It’s simply delightful in the many fresh takes on what we’ve been told too often. The book is mostly warm and often funny. I am eager for Volume II to arrive! ...more
To be fair to the author, I'll confess that I am not very fond of mysteries and thrillers, especially when they're egregiously violent and gory or preTo be fair to the author, I'll confess that I am not very fond of mysteries and thrillers, especially when they're egregiously violent and gory or prey upon women. Despite all that, I found myself racing through the pages and hoping that the protagonist wouldn't become a victim. Why is it that the iconic universities of England, in this case Cambridge, are such juicy backdrops for murder stories?
A widowed group therapist, who went to Cambridge herself, seems a perfect candidate to be playing detective, even more so because Mariana is from Greek, and many of the clues to who done it are tied to Greek mythology. How many beautiful and brilliant young women will die before anyone can stop the horror? Will any victims be men? There are frequent twists and turns, so pay close attention....more
I've been spoiled by Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I was hoping for the same switch to a fresh, not the way the men told you apprI've been spoiled by Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I was hoping for the same switch to a fresh, not the way the men told you approach to traditional Greek myths. Moving the story to this era and staging it in England, in some ways made sense. After all, the gods were immortal, yet most authors still treat them like the gods actually disappeared in a poof of Christianity. Plus it gave the author a chance to make the old gods heroic again by saving our dying planet. Unfortunately, despite a few interesting scenes, the plot fell flat for me. ...more
Maybe, like me, you won’t appreciate or follow every poem, but there is something for everyone in this collection: a microcosm ranging from Catholic tMaybe, like me, you won’t appreciate or follow every poem, but there is something for everyone in this collection: a microcosm ranging from Catholic to pagan, slice of life to fable or magic, young love, travel, politics, sex, joy, grief, tigers, and unicorns.
Kelly was born in west Belfast, so I don’t catch all her historic, cultural, or Catholic references. But I was more surprised by how much of this book crossed the pond. I wasn’t aware that Donald Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, emigrated from Ireland, yet I did get his vibes from the poem named for her. My suspicions were confirmed in the Notes section. Another poem, “Mar-a-Lago,” also brings him to mind, yet reads more like a delicious Cajun-Gothic tale. I especially liked its descriptive language:
“…The Bayou remembers in the way all swamps remember:
preserving lost centuries like a jam of clotted green memories….
In her lap, a cat sleeps like a gun on which she rests a ringed hand….
The dark braid hanging on her back reminds you suddenly
of that sycamore with its noosey rope through which you once saw the low sun
like a ruby, as if the earth was begging you to marry it.”
For me, the most touching poem in Mercy is “Miracle at Standing Rock.” Kelly celebrates the great generosity of the Choctaw tribe, who after suffering through starvation on the Trail of Tears, raised money to send to the Irish for famine relief, while the British government did not:
“But water joins their land to ours, water that carried the corn that they sent us though they had so little for themselves.
In some places water itself is a miracle. You can’t drink the black slick of oil yet it goes on being raised anyway,
This is my fourth book of poems by Michael Bazzett in addition to his translation of The Popul Vuh, and I already feel like I’m running out of ways toThis is my fourth book of poems by Michael Bazzett in addition to his translation of The Popul Vuh, and I already feel like I’m running out of ways to describe what I read. There must be a bazillion things to say about Bazzett’s work, but he says them all himself in ways that make reviews feel dry and lacking. In his blurb, Matthew Olzmann says this collection “should establish Bazzett as one of our best cartographers of human strangeness.” I’d go ahead and give him the grand title.
Each Bazzett book goes off in unforeseen directions, can terrify and amuse, make us read a poem and read it again and maybe again a third time before we can bear to turn the page. Yet each collection has its own personality.
I don’t know how recently Bazzett wrote these poems, but my own bleaker view of the world in the past couple of years makes me think he was the sober eye taking notes on mankind’s inhumanity and holding the mirror up to us during the pandemic. Unlike Narcissus, who stars in many of these poems, some of us cringe at what we see and some of us look over our shoulders to see just who the moron is that is acting that way. Not me! Not me! Still, not seeing our true selves may be slightly better than falling in love with our every lie and selfish act. Much of the book involves retelling the myth of Echo and Narcissus, hence the book’s title.
“Inside the Trojan Horse” reads like an excerpt from a Greek tragedy. Some off-stage narrator perhaps is asking questions of the Trojan chorus (like why a horse would be the gift that fooled them)…
“And where did the invaders lie?
In an unworded silence
in the stifling interior
in the belly of the animal–
And why?
Appetite–
And why?
It is always only appetite
And if?
If we had built
our building as ruins
it would have saved us
so much time–…”
One of the most disturbing poems for me was “The Problem”:
“…those who had been
unable to resist
owning a grizzly the size of a house
cat were forced to watch
the animals
slowly lose the function of their back legs
and drag their limbs behind them
in an uncanny echo
of a miniature sea lion.
What made it worse
was how good-
natured the little bears turned out to be,
how accepting
of their fate, as if they’d known
their legs would last only a little while,…”
To summarize, I want to mention one last poem, “The Singular Library of Mr. N____.”
“Every night, he returns home and reads the same book…
The thing is, it is always the same book. But what it says
changes. With every reading. Sometimes just a word or two.
Sometimes bigger things.”
Although the poem veers into the realm of surrealism or magical realism, this is the sort of magic Bazzett manages in his poems. You can come back and read them again or someone else can borrow your book, but every reading will be different. ...more
Delightful reading! Something for everyone! I’m living proof that you don’t need to be Jewish or even to know what a golem is to thoroughly enjoy thisDelightful reading! Something for everyone! I’m living proof that you don’t need to be Jewish or even to know what a golem is to thoroughly enjoy this collection. The intro, “What Is a Golem?,” will tell you all you need to know. Short answer: a golem is a figure in Jewish folklore who is summoned out of the earth, from the mud and clay, to accomplish a specific task. When the job is complete, the golem is, too, and sinks back into the ground. Hacker thought she’d write a short series of poems like this, since readers immediately loved them, but soon golems began to populate so many poems that she concludes, “I’m convinced a golem summoned me.”
You may wonder, “Do I want to read this much about golems?” You do. It’s like trying to stop after eating two or three potato chips, except these golems are not much alike. Hacker’s golems are the vehicle. Golem + task to be done = wild adventure. The book isn’t really about golems, but about humans, how we get through the worst of times like the Holocaust, but also about our foibles, vanities, hopes, curiosity, and our capacity for love. These golems render poetic justice.
Often Hacker takes us back in time, like the golem assisting Shakespeare, but many poems are up to date: how a golem protects a new voter at the polls in 2020 while another befriends a lonely woman during Covid isolation. A few golems take time to indulge themselves: luxuriating on a cruise ship, choosing a tattoo, inventing new deep-fried recipes, creating a Facebook page.
You may share a tear, but you will definitely laugh. Yes, you know how many of the best comedians and comedy writers are Jewish. You will also be touched. Soon you’ll probably start thinking of reasons YOU should conjure a golem, even if it’s to inspire Hacker to write more golem poems.
Pronounced “Poe-pol Voo,” this ancient creation myth dates to about 200 B.C.E. I had never heard of it and wouldn’t have been tempted to read it excepPronounced “Poe-pol Voo,” this ancient creation myth dates to about 200 B.C.E. I had never heard of it and wouldn’t have been tempted to read it except for one thing: Michael Bazzett. I love his poetry, and trusted that he would make this good reading. He did. In parts it reminded me of the Bible, stories of the Greek gods, Aesop, African animal legends, and Native North American animal fables.
That doesn’t mean I fully enjoyed it. Bazzett couldn’t, after all, change ancient text for the sake of making it more enjoyable. There are some gaps in logic, just as there are in the Bible (who were those people in another valley for Adam and Eve’s children to marry?). The other difficulty I had following The Popol Vuh is that the time line jumped around like it does in most 21st c. novels. However, I enjoyed it enough to give it 4 stars for the reading and an extra star for being important in our attempt to understand humankind, history, and cultural difference, as well as cultural similarities. Bazzett's magic in making words sing is also a big plus. The similarities to the Bible are uncanny. There’s a flood to eliminate unworthy humans, for example, but it’s the opening that most impressed me.
In “The Beginning,”
“…These are the first words. This is the first speaking.
There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, field, or woven forest….
When it was time to make the earth: it only took a word. To make earth they said, “Earth”
and there it was: sodden as a cloud or mist unfolds from the face of a mountain, so earth was there…”
Remind you of “Genesis”? There are also some striking differences from Judeo-Christian beliefs. The sharing of knowledge and personification of animals weaves in the beliefs of Native Americans. Many of the stories are brutal and violent like other ancient myths, but The Popol Vuh also has much more humor. There is not a single God the Father, but a male and female, the Framer and the Shaper. They seem to work more as a committee, consulting and working with other animals and lesser gods to create humans who will be worthy of a newly made world. They experiment with what materials to use. The first “people” made of wood are pretty useless. Later, they learn that using maize makes humans to their liking. They create four men as test models. Once they’re pleased with the results, they create four women as their mates. The women are made independently, not from ribs. That there were four struck me as interesting, since DNA websites tell us that we current humans are all descended from four Eves.
Last year I read Miller’s Circe and considered it my favorite novel of the year, and I read a lot of novels. I enjoyed hearing a famous macho myth retLast year I read Miller’s Circe and considered it my favorite novel of the year, and I read a lot of novels. I enjoyed hearing a famous macho myth retold from a woman’s point of view. I delighted even more in how she took the braggart Odysseus down from his pedestal. Only from Miller’s hands did I think I could enjoy hearing about the brutal men of the Trojan War yet again. She put a new spin on the legends in this first novel.
There’s still plenty of disgusting violence in this book, but what I’ll remember most is the tender love story between Achilles and Patroclus and how skillfully Miller wove many different points of view through the plot. She rounded out the characters, brought them to life. It’s also a coming of age story. Seeing how sweet and honorable the boys were before Troy makes us understand how destiny can force us into situations that test our true character. ...more
I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a novel about Circe, the Greek gods, and Odysseus. Let’s face it, those gods were petty, cruel egomaniacs, which is alsI wasn’t sure I wanted to read a novel about Circe, the Greek gods, and Odysseus. Let’s face it, those gods were petty, cruel egomaniacs, which is also what I think of Odysseus. History and myth have been handed down from a male perspective, calling atrocities of war heroic. That’s precisely why I did love this book. Circe tells her own story, and I found it immensely clever, entertaining, and satisfying to spend a few hundred years with this feminist underdog.
The pace is a bit slow in the early chapters, but a lot of details are necessary for us to understand why Circe is exiled to an island and how she has come by her vast knowledge of witchcraft. It’s also a good refresher course on Greek mythology. Should you still get Titans, Olympians, and Greek warriors confused, there’s a glossary of characters at the back. Meeting Circe as a child, we soon love her and root for her through all the adventures ahead. This is a warm, often tender story in addition to being a wild adventure.
I figured that Odysseus’s visit would be the climax of the book and was surprised when he headed home with 150 pages or so remaining. I should have known to trust both Miller and Circe to have plenty more to say. Men weren’t the only ones having adventures, just the only ones who got bragging rights until now. ...more
Loading...
