Poetry Books

Reviewed by Diane Morgan - Editor, ... .

Pat Mullan takes us on a poetic journey through Ireland, the world and childhood. His evocative poetry creates for us lush landscapes, towering cities and weeping hearts that share the sorrow within all of us.

Relationships are key to his poetry, love, loss and remembering. I truly enjoyed his style of writing; it wasn't at all like the rhyming cliché poetry we are overburdened with as we read aspiring poets; it has a rhythm all its own; one could almost hear an Irish lilt to it.

He adds to the end of his book a section in memory of James Dickey that is poignant and stirring reminding us of the vast heritage we have of poets often forgotten.

Hi I'm Zoe Whilton, and Childhood Hills is an excellent book. Each poem is a masterpiece of its own. My favorite poems are, "The Lie", "The Elevator", and "Your First Day at Dolly's" (by Annemarie Mullan Whilton, aka my mother, I am the girl at preschool, my sister is the one crying). I hope that Pat Mullan continues to write poetry.

Childhood Hills
by Pat Mullan

Reading this collection of poetry and writings was like holding a conversation with a very interesting person who can fascinate with a hypnotic flow of words. His muse is an old country bard who whispered secrets of the ancient days in the poet's ear. Pat Mullan has translated those secrets onto these pages.

You will be moved to joy and sorrow as you traverse the winding path over these Childhood Hills. Within these hills dwells a child who remembers the man he was, not a man dreaming over a lost youth. He still lives in the poetry contained here.

This author is a spirit freed from the fears of childhood that we all have shared, no matter what shape those fears take, what horrid dreams they inspire. If you allow him, this poet will guide you through imagery and images, familiar and strange, to a destination where understanding waits.

A poem is music of the soul that takes its inspiration from ordinary events, places, and people. It is a music you hear with your heart. I recommend you read Childhood Hills slowly and listen carefully. It will quicken the spirit that lives within.

I am the author of "THE FEELINGS AND IMAGINATION OF A BAREFOOT BOY STILL INSIDE MY HEAD!: Poems and Short Stories for Boys and Girls Ages 9 to 12," which will be available online soon! I bought Childhood Hills to read another author's poetry. In Pat's book, here are several of my favorites: THE QUARRY HOLE, WE NEVER TALKED, BICYCLE RIDE, SMALL VICTORY, GRANNY BUNTY'S BUTTON BOX, and MY CAT (this one is by Annemarie Mullan Whilton). As I read, Pat's poetry created a vivid picture in my mind. The poems about Pat's childhood were particularly moving. Great Book Pat!

It's an amazing way of painting a picture from a really interesting life and Childhood of this irish author. For me it was sometimes intellectuall demanding and sometimes easy to follow. My Favourites are: 'The turning point' and 'Granny Bunty's Button Box'

There is so much to praise here, where do I start? How can I possibly communicate what these poems mean to me? "Renascence" alone takes my breath away - "The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through." These words too, allow the divine to shine through. "Interim" is, perhaps, as beutiful a poem as I have ever read. The author brilliantly captures the essence of loss, that grief and confusion, the mind's inability to accept the notion of a life alone: "...part of your heart aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled in the damp earth with you. I have been torn in two, and suffer for the rest of me..." There are still so many other passages that leap off these pages. Her phrases are like literary gem stones: Sonnet XXVII: "I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year" - could it be said any more succinctly? This collection is a must for anyone who cares at all about poetry - American or otherwise.

This book of collected poems is the most treasured book that I own. My copy is absolutely falling apart - I have to keep it in its own special box.

Over the years, I have worn the binding to pieces touching, flipping, - and don't hate me - earmarking the pages of this book when I wanted to remember something and couldn't find a spare scrap of paper for a marker. There is something so exposed and fragile about her work and, at the same time, she is very strong and beautifully resolved to her observations. She doesn't communicate in frilly riddles. She speaks to everyone. "Here in a Rocky Cup" on page 471 is one of her finest. It may break your heart! Enjoy.

how delightful to find a beautiful copy to introduce my granddaughter to Edna St. Vincent Millay.

"Time does not bring relief; you all have lied/ Who told me time would ease me of my pain!"

Old and wise beyond her years, Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote the majority of her most beautiful and famous works at a startlingly young age. One of few moments of comedy in Millay's otherwise (too) serious, brief life, was that as a published and award-winning poet while still in her teens, Millay entered college literature courses, taught by older teachers there to `instruct' her, even though they, themselves, had in most cases never published a line of verse or captured a single award!

"I burn my candle at both ends/ It will not last the night...."

This famous and oft quoted line about living the hectic life was Millay's, but many have forgotten that. A half-century after her passing, she is largely unremembered, lost among a crowd of later, lesser writers, ignored by subsequent ages that placed scant value on poetry. Hers was a life often lived invisibly behind her words. Though the events of her personal life, with her promiscuity and radical ideals, at times gained notoriety beyond even her professional achievements, Millay the poet is the force this book celebrates. Even the biographical section in this anthology is terse and respectful, which I found befitting. Edna St.Vincent Millay's poems, from the startlingly powerful Renascence, to her sonnets (the best composed in the English language in centuries) to her final experimental output at the time of World War Two, everything Millay achieved succeeds in taking the consciousness of an attentive reader into a higher realm, where the mind and soul are meditatively fused as at few other times in the human lifetime, and the voyage is one of utter transcendence.

When I read the selection, "All I have is Rain," it stirred me so that I had to have it open my novel. She agreed without hesitation. It was as if she had read my manuscript. She hadn't. That poem spoke to my protagonist's heart and soul.

Bridgette Alyce has a touch that you cannot forget long after you've read her words. She is a poet extraordinaire. I rate this book 5 stars.

Poetry is such a deeply personal genre. It very often opens the hearts, minds, and wounds of a poet allowing their heartbeats, thoughts and blood drain on to the pages. Sometimes the poet is effective in touching individuals; giving words to those who had none to express. Bridgette Alyce is one of those in her book of poetry, Come, Joy!

Ms. Alyce is truly gifted with words. Her ability to paint an abstract print in some of her work stands strong beside the simplicity that she captures in others. The foreword of her book, presented in a poem, proved to be one of my favorites with vivid imagery of renewed sense of self. The only bothersome thing I found in the collection of Come, Joy! was the intensely personal poems that were written for specific people. These selections, (mostly found in the section "Songs of Loved Ones") which speak to an individual or particular situation, forced a wall of disconnection for this reader. While again the beauty of words existed I could only empathize when I would have liked to sympathize with the emotions shared. However, pieces like "Anytime", "2 a. m. (muse)", and "Forgiveness"captured true moments for this reader.

While not all the poetry spoke to me on a personal level, I have a great respect for Ms. Alyce's gift with words and gift to the genre. I look forward to reading more.


Kotanya
APOOO BookClub

...Poetry does more than stir one's soul. Good poetry provokes multi-level thinking and excellent poetry ties those thoughts in with the spiritual, emotional, sociological, and other aspects of a person's essence. Author Bridgette Alyce Greathouse Wynn has composed a book brimming with excellent poetry. COME, JOY! SONGS FROM THE SOFT OF NIGHT speaks tenderly of love gained, musically of loved ones, joyfully of spiritual journeys, and appreciatively of nature observed. I enjoyed reading almost every poem in this timeless collection.

It is impossible for me to choose a favorite poem from COME, JOY!, but every time I read "Cover Me" on page 53, I thoroughly enjoy it. Musical allusions and a melodic rhythm magnify the already intense diction of the poem. It is deep on many levels, and you can't help but let your mind dance with the poem. All manner of images surface in my mind when I read it, and I love the smoothly abrupt way that it coasts to an end, like a dip at the end of a tango.

Author Wynn shows readers throughout the book that she is a skilled poet, experimenting with various styles and techniques and manipulating the English language for optimality. She begins and ends the composition with very fitting haikus while indulging in vivid descriptions on everything in between. Most all of the poems in the Songs of Love section and the Songs of Nature section impressed me, even though every section in this book is more than worth readers' time and close attention.

I love how Wynn makes me think, stirs the embers of my own poetic fire, and makes me want to dig deeper into her poetry. They're full - of life, sounds, emotions, and journeys. I want to analyze them and extract any and every meaning possible. She inspires me to read more, write more, and study more. Simply put, COME, JOY is poetry at its best.

Reviewed by Natasha T.
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

In "Come, Joy! Songs from the Soft of the Night" Bridgette Alyce bears her soul in poetic serenades of love, loved ones, nature, and spirit.

The rhythm of the prose and the balance of emotion makes Alyce a true psalmist. The poems are honest and meaningful. "Come, Joy!" is book of inspiration worthy to be on the bookshelves of everyone breathing. She shows that dark times don't have to be filled with fear and turmoil. When the world sleeps through the night you can find solace in the softness of the voice that speaks from within.

Makasha Dorsey, Reviewer
Atlanta, GA

This work is definitely a book you must read over and over. I have several favorites, including, "Meditation", "My Love is a Song", and all the ones describing the author's great love for family and special frienships. The title piece in the final chapter on the spiritual relationship with the Creator, is also a favorite, and Ms. Wynn's earnest invocation of the Spirit throughout is evidence of the connection she desires to make and maintain in sharing the gift she's been blessed with. The poems in the collection minister to the soul in different ways, encouraging and instructing, edifying and uplifting and especially in the soft of my own nights, these poem confirm what the heart has always known. There is joy in the morning. A must read for people who enjoy good literature that speaks to the heart.

I find John Donne's poetry distinctly representative of the 17th century. It oscilates from being passionately sexual to passionately spiritual, and every detail seems to have been considered. The poems are augmented by Donne's allusions, but they are still beautiful to read without pondering the deeper meanings.

I prefer the alphabetized format of this collection, since chronology and subject matter are fairly nebulous when it comes to Donne. The endnotes are brief enough for readers looking for something simple, but add enough interest that those with a more scholarly bent will have plenty to play with.

I am greatly enjoying this book. The notes at the end explain some of Donne's more obscure imagery. A potentially controversial choice by the editor was to change the spelling of many words to more modern forms, which makes the poems easier to read at the expense of authenticity. Some people will like that and some people won't. Another odd choice was to list the poems in alphabetical order, instead of grouping them by subject matter or attemp to list them in approxiamte chronolgical order.
Buy this book and enjoy the breathtaking poems. You could do a lot worse with your time.

Finally, I've found a poet I really like reading. Donne's poems suit me more than Shakespeare's sonnets or Poe's verse, and apart from someone like Yvor Winters, I just don't get modern poetry (apologies to Sylvia Plath fans).

What rings well with me is, well, ringing well! Reading a poem out loud with a bit of drama should just sound good. That's why rap and hip hop can really be considered poetry (well, some rap and hiphop anyway).

A great example of this is Shakespeare's sonnet 129 (The expense of spirit in a waste of shame/Is lust in action; and till action, lust...). Most (not all) of Shakespeare's sonnets are harder to understand than this one, which is why they don't resonate with me as well as I'd like. Donne on the other hand is different; most of what he writes in English sounds good and is immediately understandable.

Not that I understand everything in these poems, there are many contemporary allusions that are lost on me, but there's enough in there that sounds very good to allow me to right away enjoy myself. Here are two great lines, which open the sonnet "Community", to illustrate what I mean by good sound.

Good we must love, and must hate ill,
For ill is ill, and good good still...

There are problems, themselves interesting, that bring discord to a poem. For instance in Donne's England "love" rhymed with "prove" but because today these words don't, a couplet with this rhyme is marred to our 21st century ears.

A personal note: I was in bed reading "Soul Made Flesh" about the discovery that the brain is the seat of consciousness, made by Oxford scholars in 17th century England. I had reached an account of how large audiences of curious onlookers gathered to see doctors perform autopsies. I put the book down and decided to dip into Donne before going to sleep. I flipped out when I read The Damp's opening lines:

When I am dead, and doctors know not why,
And my friends' curiosity
Will have me cut up to survey each part...

Talk about serendipity! Now if I had just read an explanation of these lines in the notes, they would not have meant much to me. But because reading "Soul Made Flesh" had transported me into Donne's England for a few moments, the dramatic effect of the opening was multiplied immensely.

In a nutshell, I find that I love Donne and I recommend this comprehensive easy-to-carry well-annotated edition. My only negative comment is that the editing is a bit unimaginative: the editor places the sonnets in alphabetical order of title simply because there is no accepted canonical ordering... Oh well.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

This book of poetry is quite wonderful. Donne's imagery and words are truly beautiful. His poetry displays wit, beauty and perception. Donne wrote in the sixteenth century, but his ideas and thoughts were actually quite modern. His work is incomparable when it comes to displaying the feelings and emotions of love and of friendship. Donne's poetry is often referred to a metaphysical, but it is also witty and fun. He was an extremely intelligent man, and this is reflected in his work. At times the poems can be difficult to understand, but it is well worth taking the time to do so since they are so beautiful

Songs and Sonnets, Epigrams, Elegies, Satyres, Letters, The Anniversaries, Divine Poems. These are some of the categories of this collection of Donne's complete works. The volume also has a short life of Donne, and an overall introduction to his poetry.
Donne, is generally considered the greatest of the Metaphysical poets. His two great subjects are Love and Death, and his passionate intellect dares to connect elements of diverse worlds into a rich metaphorical texture of poetic conceits. The bold comparisons , the bringing of all modes of experience into relation with the Divine mark out his truly great work.

...The gist of it was this: Crow is one of the best books of poetry published in the last 50 years...

As an English major in 1973, one of my professors recommended this book of poetry. None of our textbooks contained any of Ted Hughes' work but I jotted his name and this title in the margin of one of my books. After graduating, I spent very little time reading or thinking about poetry. But I recently revived my interest in poetry, specifically after reading several biographies of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. I pulled out my old poetry textbooks, found this note and immediately ordered Crow to read it for myself.
What an experience. The work is fantastic - the images, the rhythm, the concept. Amazing, entertaining, and relevant.
I highly recommend this book.

A brilliant work! Honest, straightforward, raw and hardcore poems
that will knock your socks off. This is the only work I recommend reading by Hughes.

I first read this in the late 70's. The harshness, the brutality of it all was a punch in the stomach. An overturning of how i imagined poetry to be. Poetry because of this could belong to me too. It was a similar sensation to the crashing, nihilistic verve of early punk records. It will always remind me that poetry can be as powerful as a 3 minute, 3 chord record, and just as accessible. It did not have any of the cultural baggage of TS Eliot's Wasteland,for example, Which to a provincial boy stuck in a Comprehensive School, belonged to a diferent, musty world .

"Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow" is a collection of poems by Ted Hughes. The copyright page notes that the book was first published in 1972. This is a remarkable book that often reads like some apocryphal sacred text. The book is dominated by its title character, who is the focus of a significant number of the poems. Crow is a multifaceted character with mythic heft: he is a warrior, theologian, trickster, and partner with God in creation. He is both heroic and ridiculous, foolish and wise. He's a compelling and delightful character who ultimately transcends all cultures and historical eras.

The collection as a whole is whimsical, witty, apocalyptic, bold, revelatory, irreverent, visceral, horrific, and playful. At times, Hughes' poetic marriage of the earthy and the mystical reminded me of Walt Whitman. The book also calls to mind traditional Native American animal stories.

Many of the poems in "Crow" touch on the magic and power of words. The natural world is another key recurring motif. Hughes delivers some striking images and some interesting arrangements of words on the page--many poems really engage the eye. Many poems read like religious litanies. Overall, an impressive and enjoyable poetic achievement.

This book cannot be praised enough. Here you have the opportunity to read the early poems of one of the generation's best poets. As has been remarked by previous reviewers, there is an optimism in Kaminsky's poems even amidst tragedy; an unearthly eloquence and musicality to each and every line. It is an unbelievably refreshing tone.

You'll breeze through the book in no time and then realize that you can spend a day on every page. This is a book of transport - to another time, another country, in other bodies and minds - and what you will find there is a new mythos - cities of birds and song and silence all together. And there, on the bench reading a small book filled with beauty in the midst of cobblestones? Why it is you.

from the first encounter to the sixtieth, this book grabs and holds. It is a daring, beautiful debut and the kind of book that makes me invest in books of poetry, hopeful each time that they will yield the percentage of brilliance and beauty that this book does. Kaminsky reminds me why we write and why we read.

I highly recommend Ilya Kaminsky's first book. It is full of small beautiful lyric moments that rise across history. His love poems are simply beautiful. I can't agree more with those reviewers too who mention Kaminsky's style of reading. The poet Joe Weil once wrote "poetry has forgotten how to praise/ forgotten how to pray." Ilya Kaminsky has not forgotten either.

This is the best book of poetry I've read in years. I read it again and again.
I couldn't recommend it more.

John FitzGerald, author of Spring Water

I had the pleasure of hearing Ilya Kaminsky read his poetry from Dancing in Odessa the other day at my college. He came into the room and seemed a bit shy at first. Uncertain as to "what to do" he began to read from his book. A powerful and lyrical voice filled the room and everyone was glued to her/his seat listening. He not only writes wonderful, thought-provoking and dazzling poems but he reads with an energy unsurpassed. He uses his voice in incredible ways, incredible ranges and he employs his whole body in the experience. One gets the sense she is witness to something profound and passionate, spellbinding. Kaminsky's voice is strange, beautiful and musical.

One of the most famous - and infamous - letters in all of literature, De Profundis is a strange little piece of work: either much more than it appears on the surface, or much less. It is something I think everyone should read, if only for its insight into the human character, particularly that of one under great personal suffering. Wilde wrote this extraordinarily long letter from prison to Lord Alfred Douglas, his friend, lover, and the man who - by all accounts - was the reason Wilde was in jail in the first place. Despite repeated assertions in the first few pages alone to the contrary, Wilde seems reluctant to blame himself. He clearly blames Douglas to the hilt, and harbors a certain bitter resentment towards him. And yet... he clearly still hold much dear affection toward - and even loves - Douglas. He still seems to be asking for forgiveness - despite the fact that, by all accounts hardly excluding his own, he was the man wronged. It is quite clear from reading this letter that, desite the view history holds of him, Wilde was clearly a man of very high moral character. Certainly, one would not put Wilde atop a pedastal as the zenith of ethics - he himself says that morals contain "absolutely nothing" for him, and clearly admits - and is proud of - his having lived the high life to the hilt during his youth - but Wilde was a man of principles, and he stuck to those principles to the tragic, bitter end. Perhaps you might say he carried them too far. One gets the sense in reading this letter - or a biography of Wilde - that, not only could he have stopped his immiment imprisonment, but could have severed his ties with Douglas completely - had he wanted to. Apparently, he had his own utterly compelling reasons for not doing so. Whatever the case, Oscar Wilde is one of the most fundamentally and perpetually interesting characters in the whole of history. A self-described man of paradoxes - Wilde was subsequently the true essence of his time, while also being far ahead of his time - De Profundis makes for required reading by one of the most endlessly fascinating individuals you'll ever read about, and also provides a startling - indeed, perhaps too much so - insight into human nature.

De Profundis, though long for a letter, is not a long work in the conventional sense. Consequently, as many editions of Wilde's collected works are available, buying this on its own may be deemed questionable. I highly reccommend purchasing a Collected Works of Oscar if you have not done so already - it's well worth the price - but, should you desire to have more compact editions of specific works, an edition such as this will be privy to your needs.

This is a very moving account of a heartbroken man who was betrayed by a person he loved dearly. The pain, the trauma, the love, the anger, the frustration is evident in every single well-written sentence. This book is not only a window into the mind of one of the best British writers of the late 19th century. It is also a timeless lesson on what can happen when one falls in love with someone who doesn't truly appreciate what they have before them. Of course there are other lessons to be learned in this book but rather than point them out here, I'd much prefer you pick up a copy of "De Profundis" as soon as you can.

Not actually a "letter," though it had to be originally presented as such for him to be allowed to write it while in prison, *De Profundis* is Wilde's masterpiece--one has to have really lived and really, really suffered to have written it and it's amazing that he achieved it.

I only very recently read it--and "got" it. It rings true to me, and is very, very moving and "profound." It ain't summer beach reading.

Wilde is still and will probably always be best known as a "Personality"--that and the author of a couple of decent period plays, a short novel, a few stories, and lots of forgettable poems and such. But THIS--THIS is IT.

He really WAS a great writer, it turns out, after all.

So many people concentrate on De Profundis' accusations cast towards Alfred Douglas. Yes, it's true that the letter was written to him and that Wilde is ruthless in letting Douglas know exactly what he thinks of him but that's not why De Profundis is a great piece of work. It is great for three reasons. Number one - It contains the best account of the life of Christ. Christ as the romantic artist is the only account that has moved me to tears and the only account I can personally embrace. Number two - it is chock full of the Oscar Wilde voice and wit and as a result it reverbates as a true work of art and number three - It is ultimately a work that celebrates the things in life worth feeling - failure, love, injustice, strength and forgiveness.

Don't waste your time with the accusations towards Douglas. He is unimportant. Oscar Wilde is what's important and De Profundis is Oscar Wilde bare.

Ah, me...one doesn't know which to be more irritated
and exasperated with: whether it be Walt Whitman doing
his dissembling shuck-and-shuffle about the children
he had sired (to throw off a probing, serious John
Addington Symonds) -- or Oscar, in this "j'accuse," which
he should have spoken while looking in a mirror, rather
than writing it on paper to Lord Alfred.
This is without doubt a fascinating, horrifying,
and yet in places humorous, "piece de Miserere mei"
(to combine a bit of French with Latin).
If one chooses to believe Oscar, his only fault
was weakness in "giving in" to Lord Alfred. Oh,
come now. Blinded by Eros, reason flies out the
door...if ever reason was in control. There are
some sentences which are devastatingly revealing,
but Oscar doesn't seem to see it. "The trivial in
thought and action is charming. I had made it
the keystone of a very brilliant philosophy expressed
in plays and paradoxes." Ye gods, and little fishes!

And this man dared to call himself a "Classicist?!"
Yikes!!!
The best exercise for the reader is to just take
many of the things which Oscar accuses Lord Alfred
of, and turn them toward the self-blind, self-
justifying Oscar, to see their devastating hitting
of the mark. Never having met the young man, but
only having the "benefit" of hearsay (mostly from
Oscar's literary defenders) Lord Alfred seems to have
been calculating, temperamental (using anger to get
his way), manipulative, etc., etc., etc. The best
description of him may be Wilde's referring to him
with the lines from Aeschylus' play AGAMEMNON,
about the lion cub being raised in a house and
being let loose to wreak havoc and ruin.
But Oscar bears his share of blame -- more than just
that of the "sin" of weakness which he constantly falls
back upon in his own justification. Even in the midst
of what purports to be some sort of penitent cry from
the depths of hell...Oscar still is ever the poseur:
"And I remember that afternoon, as I was in the railway
carriage whirling up to Paris, thinking what an impossible,
terrible, utterly wrong state my life had got into, when
I, a man of world-wide reputation, was actually forced
to run away from England, in order to try and get rid
of a friendship that was entirely destructive of everything
fine in me either from the intellectual or ethical point
of view...." Er, when was the last time that the
"everything fine" had last seen the light of day?
Was Oscar an "Artist," as he consistently claims?
Was he the wronged, harmed Artist? Perhaps only the
reader can decide that for himself. Without doubt
he was witty, acerbic, funny, cute, clever, perhaps
even charming (to some -- sort of like a Pillsbury
Dough Boy with flair and a clever tongue), perhaps
stylish (in a frumpy, velveteen sort of way). Was
he wronged by a predatory clinger and manipulator,
and a hypocritical social prudery and class power
play (Oscar is no Socrates--that's for sure!)? He
hardly seems worthy, in some ways, of being a poster-boy
for Gay Pride parades. More likely, he is a better
warning poster boy for the self-excusing, and never
take-responsibility-for-your-own-actions crowd.
But this is an incredible piece to read and think
about. There is some of it that is mordantly hilarious.

Powerful is the word that comes to mind. The writing, the plot and the dialogue. The character of Carrie is as different from me as night and day and yet when she needed to be strong she totally came through for herself. I didn't agree with many of the choices she made yet by the end of the novel I was rooting for her like she was a best friend.

The husband is truly irredeemable and I am glad to say I have not in my lifetime been around anyone so domineering, condescending, insufferable and without self-awareness. In fact, his whole life revolved around him, he can't grasp why everyone around him wasn't focused at all times on his needs. Loathsome. The author does a terrific job of making him so real that you hope never to cross paths with him.

I absolutely adored Val. I could totally see why Carrie was drawn to her. I loved the way Val was written as so very strong and unique yet not without flaws.

This is a book that will stay with you forever.

I was quite disappointed in this book - it was the first fiction of its kind I have ever read and sadly it lived up to all the negative stereotypes. The husband character in the book is such a cardboard-cut out villian the lesbian lover is a virtual saint. However the author has a real talent for making sex scenes erotic. Definitely a book for flicking through ...

Katherine has done it again, with her usual finesse, she's brought characters to life with writing so clear and descriptive it was as if I had been scooped up by some force and surreally planted in the midst of the events of EMERGENCE. I am in awe! I only wish there were some sort of epilogue, to give me some sense of closure to Val and Carrie's relationship, and especially to the evil that befalls Paul (Carrie's ex-husband). No complaints; just wishes. Truly remarkable!!

I began reading Katherine V Forrest's mystery novels and I hate to admit... but I wasn't terribly impressed. Yet so many of my friends said she was one of their favorite authors. So I finally picked up "An Emergence of Green" and now she is also one of my favorite authors.
This is a wonderfully touching story of how the friendship between two women blossom into something more. I highly recommend this book to anyone, gay or straight.
It reads very fast, and I was on the edge of my seat through many chapters not wanting to wait to find out what happens next. The setting is a bit dated, but the story refreshing. You won't be disappointed

Alice Street Editions has released a new edition of this 1986 novel by author Katherine V. Forrest, originally published by Naiad Press. If you read this novel long ago, it is worth the purchase price just to read the foreword from the author and the afterword written by Victoria A. Brownworth. But the book is worth rereading for its own merits.
Set in 1984 in Los Angeles against the backdrop of the Olympics and the presidential campaign involving the first (and only) woman candidate for vice president, the novel is not dated at all by this, nor is it dated by its subject matter. It is as fresh and nuanced and topical as if it had been written today.
The point is made in the afterword that Ms. Forrest writes about lesbians for lesbians. In this novel, among the first in a new genre of lesbian fiction, Ms. Forrest carefully and skillfully presents the male character, the antagonist, as fully drawn and as sympathetically as one could, a man trapped by his upbringing and his past and the social mores of his time. One may not feel sympathy for him, given the inevitable and violent denouement, but we can certainly understand him.
In fact, a reader might even begin to feel less sympathy and more impatient with the main character Carolyn Blake than perhaps might be expected. She is a trophy wife, married at nineteen to a man ten years older who is already well established in his corporate career track. She sublimates her own education and career to his, leaving jobs to move with his transfers, seemingly accepting without question that her career is less important. A friendship with the woman next door, Val Hunter, a divorced artist with a son, allows Carolyn, and the reader, to begin to draw comparisons.
One of the most interesting things about this novel is how close we get to all three main characters. We see Val through Carolyn's admiring eyes and growing affection, and also through Paul's growing resentment and jealousy as he comes to understand she is his rival. We see Carolyn both through her husband's idealistic view as a possession of which he inordinately proud, and as Val comes to know her, a vibrant woman who has spent far too much time acquiescing to Paul's idea of the perfect wife. Carolyn struggles to continue to believe her husband's possessiveness is a product of his impoverished childhood, the early loss of his mother, and his love for her, which she believes is genuine. Val sees a grown man who is domineering and arrogant in his presumptive male superiority. She instinctively feels there is something infantile about Paul's need for Carolyn, and Carolyn herself often refers to her husband as a little boy. Once she thought of this as an endearing trait, but she begins to feel his need to have her with him as clinging, suffocating, and ultimately controlling.
The tug of war that ensues between husband and friend for the heart and mind of Carolyn Blake slowly escalates as the sexual tension and awareness between the two women increases.
For those who haven't read this book before, a few words of caution. The nature of sex itself is at the heart of this novel. There are no pulled punches here. Ms. Forrest is not shy about delineating the intimate sexual details of a marriage and, exquisitely, the sexual and very sensual relationship between the two women. Nor does she back away from the same attention to the excruciating unraveling of Paul Blake and his eventual recourse to violence as the familiar world he has created starts to crumble.
I once had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Forrest, and found myself peppered with questions about this book, then yet to be released by Alice Street. On the eve of the release of her thirteenth book, the eighth in the Kate Delafield detective series, she wanted to know about a book she had written almost twenty years ago, as nervous as a first time author. Perhaps recalling the critical reviews of many years ago, she asked whether the main character, Carolyn Blake, was too weak.
The answer then and now is an emphatic no. Many women may recognize themselves in Carolyn, guided by the accepted precepts of her time, who believed that in placing their husbands' lives and careers first, they were perhaps doing the hard work often assigned women, that of balancing the cementing of family and home against their own sometimes unspoken desires; to be a woman meant doing what had to be done, and then doing more, if one wanted to also have a career. It takes some time for Carolyn Blake to realize her own needs and to leave behind the conventions to which she adhered but in which she found no rewards for her loyalty, no comfort or room for herself.
The afterword properly places this novel, and Katherine V. Forrest's body of work, firmly in the history of a genre she helped to create, both as an author of great skill, and as senior editor at Naiad Press for ten years.

In a collection of poems inspired by some of the concepts fundamental to relationships between lover and loved. Glenn A. Fenster's FEELINGS AND PROMISES taps into the human experience of love, sex, death, connection, loss, hope, mystery and more.

The poem's subjects range from the very personal to the broadly elemental. He describes both beautiful scenery and complex inner emotions, sometimes within the same verse. This is an interesting collection that feels very accessible to those of us who might not read poetry regularly. At one poem per page, this slim volume of 69 pages offers a lot of material to explore. FEELINGS AND PROMISES delivers Fenster's view of the world, and in the way of poetry, asks us to consider our own.

The poetry of Glenn A. Fenster is carefully crafted, elegant, lyrical, and memorable. Feelings And Promises is a superb introduction to Fenster's abilities and skills as a weaver of words, images, and feelings. Time And Space: Summers first rain,/Words drown./Obscurity creates disbelief,/Tears act as exoneration/A pain death could cause/And love could give./Standing in shadows/Swallowed by the light,/As recycled paper/Years fasten themselves/To pass as thorns/And ill advised moments/Only to be balanced/By the offing/That you pervade./Landscaped lives/Obtaining the malicious possessions/Time spaced by inconsistences/Of a man's life/We choose or become/Accept and be stagnate/Emotionally secured by either/We tend to lean upon,/Time and space.

Feelings and Promises: The poetry of Glenn A. Fenster,69 pages of poetry, 3 pages Table of Contents in numerical order and 3 pages of acknowledgements is dedicated to his brother Randy. Published by Gray matter Publishing & Design Co., Athens, GA. Glenn A. Fenster's Feelings and Promises is a fine philosophical collection of poems which speak out with an independent voice that shapes his creations the way that wind sculpts soft sand into visions of art. Among these excellent works are poems which etch picturesque cells of life. I particularly enjoyed the following: Dying Rose Petals ("My tongue felt your exquisite body reach out...") (p.12) Decades Have Passed... of this poem, it is as if Glenn is meditating with a distant Zulu shaman and is being taught secrets from the great book of mystery about the reason he must write. (p.23) Children ("Echoed sounds of passing trains / Become children turned into statues") (p.68)

Here are poems from a very personal perspective. The word "I" used in many of Glenn's writings, lets the reader know just how personal Glenn's "Feelings and Promises" are crafted into each poem. This book is recommended to read during those times when you search for answers within yourself, and also to understand as though looking inward, through another person's mind, just what that search has discovered.

Gary Elton Warrick December 29, 1999

Hi, I have read a few of my Uncle Glenn A. Fenster's poems even though he doesn't approve of me reading his poetry. I think his poetry is great. It expresses his emotions and feelings greatly. I truly like his work. Not because he's my uncle but because he as a true talent.

From, Stephanie 15 yr. old niece of Glenn Fenster.

"FEELINGS & PROMISES" is just a wonderful collection of contemporary poetry. I found it to be insightful, soulful and thought provoking. As a fellow poet of "BARE BREASTED HEART" I could relate to the written words of this wonderful collection.

So much poetry is written in code where you really have to hesitate and wonder if you are comprehending the poetry as the author intended. This collection althought thought provoking bring you full circle to the intention of the writer.

I loved it and I encourage further writing from this poet! Would make a great gift or a personal treat to oneself.

Saadia's writing always leaves me wanting to read more...and more...
Her poems are powerful, confident, honest, funny and sexy. Never dull and always lively. The juxtapositions in her work never cease to amaze.
These are the kind of poems I wish I had written. That I want to send to my friends, because it's what I'm thinking. I love 'Mischief: Inspired by Tequila' ... ("My discarded/ red dress/watches us rejected and/dry"). And 'Kerouac's Lover' is just plain hot.

Her poetry has a way of making you root for sin. Always.

I'm not going to try to wax poetic here. I just want to say that Saadia's poetry is top notch! She can write about anything imaginable, and that is the mark of a true artist. Like the title says, her poems have the ability to hit you like a bullet, and other times like a nice soft pillow. The variety is amazing. Reading her poems is a joy and at the same time educational. Those of us on Xanga refer to her as our "poetry professor." I have learned more about poems, poetry, forms, and creativity in the last few months, than I have learned in my lifetime. I am grateful to have found the writing of this talented poet, and I am also grateful that I can call her a friend. -Randy Van Otterloo

She's a lover, and a lady, a mother, and a wife, a sinner, and a saint sharing pieces of life. She, and her words, so beautifully irresistible, that she will lure you in with her "Lavish Lines and Luscious Lies". You will go happily to your demise. What better way to go. Give in to her sultry temptation, and you will be rewarded with "Flirtations and Booze"

Saadia's writing, is a weekend in the finest hotel with the lover of your dreams, and memories that will last a lifetime..... She takes you for a ride in a BMW Z8 through the canyon roads of southern California at 100 miles an hour... Hang on tight! The ride is an intense one, but she has everything under control. ..... and now, I can't wait for the next ride :o)

Brent

This may be a "short," but it's long on brilliance. Aschemann's keen intelligence and stiletto wit carries the reader along breathlessly into worlds wished for but never quite achieved. Perhaps she's holding us up to the prism of her reality, forcing us to look inside ourselves, holding us responsible for our forbidden thoughts. Whatever it is, she certainly knows her way around words and makes them work hard for the money.

Required reading.

Amazing! This is one of those things that I downloaded with every intent on reading it later when I had time. But once I took a peek, I couldn't stop, everything else went on the back burner. This was the best 'me' time, I had in quite a while. Sultry Saadia draws you in with the first poem, leaving you breathless to the end....