Poetry Books

This is a beautiful fairy tale-esque novel that crosses centuries and temperments while writing a new history of France. The main character is Cidrolin, a Frenchman in the 20th century who spends his lackadaisical days giving directions to tourists, painting over graffiti on his fence, and dreaming of the Duke d'Auge. The more charismatic Duke comes galloping into his dreams atop his loquacious well-read horse, starting in the 13th century before running into Cidrolin in our century. In fact the Duke rams his way through history 175 years at a time. In the meantime, he argues religion with the clergy, slaughters herds of bourgeois, and bludgeons anyone who happens to disagree with him. After all, he is a Duke.

It does not get any funnier than this. Whether you want 3 stooges physical comedy or satire concerning religion and class, it will be provided. This is a novel in which Don Quixote himself would not be out of place. The fantastic clashes with the mundane, but always to the readers utmost delight. Never before has so much essence of fennel been drunk. Raymond Queneau has added another delightful novel to the ouvroir of Oulipo. Blue Flowers fits in perfectly next to Calvino and other members works.

'The Blue Flowers' is the most lovable of all Raymond Queneau's novels, one of those rare books you never want to end (for me, the only others I can think of are 'Huckleberry Finn' and 'Dance to the music of time'). It relates two paralell narratives (or rather - and Queneau is the great mathematical novelist! - base and perpendicular narratives): the historical narrative of the endearingly aggressive Duc d'Auge, nay-sayer to royal authority and public opinion, friend of Gilles de Rais and the Marquis de Sade, and debunker of religion to the extent of daubing on caves in the Perigord region to 'prove' the existence of humanity before Adam; his three daughters, including the defective, bleating Phelise, and their small-minded spouses; his squire Mouscaillot and their talking horses, philosophical Demosthenes and taciturn Stef; and his clerical foils, the abbes Biroton and Riphinte. We meet the Duke at 175 year historical intervals - refusing to rejoin the barbarous crusades in 1264, and forced to slaughter disapproving bourgeoisie; investing in new weaponry, most notably the cannon, in defence of his castle in 1439; dabbling in alchemy in 1614; fleeing the French Revolution in 1789. Throughout he hunts, visits the capital, marries woodcutters' young daughters, feasts ferociously, and debates with his clergy.
From the terrifying active Duke, the contemporary story focuses on passive Cidrolin, once wrongly convicted for a crime for which he is still persecuted by an unknown graffiti artist who daubs obscene accusations on his fence every night. Now living on a barge, drinking endless glasses of essence of fennel, he doesn't do much, giving directions to tourists, staring at construction sites or the nearby camping site. Any trip out of the ordinary invariably finds him back where he started; conversations are banal and repetitive. Like the Duke, he has three daughters and sons-in-law, a dead wife and the first name Joachim. He spends most of his time taking siestas, dreaming of the Duke. When the Duke sleeps, usually replete from an enormous meal, he dreams of Cidrolin. Queneau says his book's starting point was the old Chinese saying about a philosopher - When he went to sleep, he dreamt of a butterfly; when he woke up, he wondered whether he was a butterfly dreaming of a philosopher.
'Flowers' is, according to the experts, Queneau's most dense and philosophical novel, an intimidating mixture of Chinese philosophy, 'Finnegan's Wake', Plato, Hegel etc. It certainly deals with Big Themes, such as History, Time, Cosmology, Art, the Importance and Interpretation of Dreams. But for the less intellectually alert amongst us (including me), 'Flowers' offers sundry, more accessible pleasures. The comic set-pieces, which can arise from slapstick; bathos and deflated rhetoric; the deadpan recording of absurd conversations, and the absurd convolutions of deadpan conversations. the characters, from whom biography and psychology is deliberately and crucially elided, nevertheless end up being so completely endearing you don't want to leave them. The eulogy to dreams and their subversive power over official history. The detective story element - what crime was Cidrolin accused of? Who is his persector? Why is the watchman of the camp spying on him? Who sabotaged the new flats? Mostly, 'Flowers' is a joy for its language: the historical settings and wide social range of characters allowing for an Augian feast of archaic and obsolete words, jaw-breaking technical terms, slang, puns, neologisms, for all of which Barbara Wright finds delightful and rich equivalents in the wealth of English life and literature. So inventive, audacious and important is her translating, she should really be credited as the book's co-author.

Raymond Queneau (1903-1976) provided a summary of his novel "The Blue Flowers" (1965): "...'I dream that I am a butterfly and pray there is a butterfly dreaming he is me.' The same can be said of the characters in my novel...". The plot wigwags between the bedlam-inducing Duke of Auge (clobbering his way through History at 200 year clips) and the perennially-dozy Cidrolin (fixed to the '60s and his barge on the Seine).

Is one dreaming the other? That is the basic conceit of this lavishly surreal and philosophically-rich novel.

I espeially recommend this title to readers who enjoy books by Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco & Georges Perec.

Did I mention the talking horses?

Queneau is a master, as is his translator Barbara Wright. I don't think you will find a translation that communicates more of the book's essence than this one. Every sentence is a play on words and meaning...Wright manages to take Queneau's French "jokes" and make them equally artistic English ones. This book is a delight in its entirety, perfectly deliberate and crafted, yet whimsical, personal, rambling, historical, and more all at once. It is as forward-thinking as Joyce's Ulysses, and in my opinion as important a primer for the ultimate literature.

There is a phrase in the original french edition of this book which explains everything: "REVER ET REVELER C'EST A PEU PRES LE MEME MOT". Italo Calvino translated in italian with a fantastic "STAI ATTENTO CON LE STORIE INVENTATE, RIVELANO COSA C'E' SOTTO. TAL QUALE COME I SOGNI" Keep attention with your dreams, they will disclose your intentions. Read this book and sleep with Cidrolin dreaming about the life of the Duc d'Auge in the past or, if you prefer, live with the Duc d'Auge and dream about Cidrolin's life in the present. Just a surprise: one day, in Paris, they will meet themselves...

Great book! This book, Blues for Bird, is worth all the other biographies of Charlie Parker combined. A concise and direct evocation of the jazzman's life, it tells the tragic story of his rise and fall, and the tragic decline of his later years--it censors nothing, it tells the story better than a more detailed biographical volume, And does it with a poet's ear and eye! Alright! Be-bop!

How can you write an epic today when the world is no longer 'story-shaped'? You can go back and translate 'Beowulf', as Seamus Heaney has done, or you can be like Martin Gray and write an epic life in quantum bursts of three-stress energy.

Somebody ought to make a bunch of CDs, with an actor reading these highly accessible poems against a backdrop of Charlie Parker's music. They'd be a wow!

Great book! This book, Blues for Bird, is worth all the other biographies of Charlie Parker combined. A concise and direct evocation of the jazzman's life, it tells the tragic story of his rise and fall, and the tragic decline of his later years--it censors nothing, it tells the story better than a more detailed biographical volume, And does it with a poet's ear and eye! Alright! Be-bop!

How can you write an epic today when the world is no longer 'story-shaped'? You can go back and translate 'Beowulf', as Seamus Heaney, has done, or you can be like Martin Gray and write an epic life in quantum bursts of three-stress energy.

Great picture book with a wonderful story! I purchased it to share with high school students to show them how visualization is important when you read.

It's a great childress book, but adults will enjoy it also. Soon to be a collectors item.

If you want to know what the book is about and the feel of it,
take a look at the cover. It says it all - the scariness, the
unutterable sadness, the awfulness of the slavery & then the segregation in the South from which the Blues developed.

I just read this book and even as I write this review I'm feeling reluctant to continue. This isn't one of those books that you quickly glance through then immediately write your response on. It's that rare kind of book that you read, and stop, and then think about for long periods of time. It's the book you carry with you to quiet places, like park benches or sloping green hills, just to read it to yourself. It's a book that sings without straining, that ropes you in with its words and then traps you with its images. I shouldn't be writing this review now. I should stop and think more about this book, ponder it a while, and when I figure out what to make of it THEN I'd write this review. But I'm afraid that if I wait to puzzle this book through completely, I'll never get around to writing anything at all. And that would be the worst response to something this good, I suppose. So it is with great reluctance that I'm going to try to convey to you what this book feels like to read.

A little background first. Written by young adult book god Walter Dean Myers, the author switches his focus from long prose to picture book form. Accompanied by Christopher Myers (an artist in the sense that what he draws drips into you) the two have concentrated on the blues. There's a fabulous author's note at the beginning explaining what the blues is and how it was born. From the call and response singing form, found on the continent of Africa, this type of music mixed with European English to create the final product, the blues. Myers puts it this way, "When art from two cultures comes together, the result is often an exciting new experience". He goes on to explain a couple terms and how the blues moved from the fields to the cities. Then the book begins.

I don't know enough about the blues personally to be able to tell if all the different lyrics found in this book can be individually assigned to a particular singer or situation, though I assume that this is the case. Likewise, I'm not certain if the illustrations in this book are based on photographs, but again, I assume so. After all, I recognized the reference to "strange fruit" one one page, and on another I remembered seeing the photo of the two boys sitting on the street curb, one turning his head away to sob. The book does something near impossible. It conveys misery without depressing. Reading through these stanzas, it's almost as if the book is one multi-veined blues song itself. The illustrations compliment this perfectly. The book is black and blue, brown and white. But mostly blue, to be honest. My favorite two-page spread features women hanging their sheets to dry on one page, and a woman reaching towards a flying blackbird on another. I could sit and stare at these pages for hours, if I had a mind to.

The books ends with a timeline of significant moments in the blues as well as a glossary of terms. Y'know, there are hundreds of books out there today about jazz and the importance of the jazz musicians. Why have the blues been so ignored? I can only assume because jazz is the easier subject to write about. Writing about blues, you're in danger of only showing the depressing aspects of the genre, and not the art. It takes an artist to convey this particular form well. We are fortunate that not one, but two artists took it upon themselves to do just that. This is the book that took my breath away.

Father-son, writer-illustrator team Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers have produced a masterpiece. W. D. Myers's text is made up of poetic blues lyrics, the "call and response" depicting the African-American experience. The poetry is beautiful, unsettling and evocative; it is perfectly complemented by C. Myers's art. The artwork is done entirely in white paint, warm brown paper bags, and blue ink -- every blue tone from navy-black blue to ice-white blue. It is not at all obvious at first glance that his palette was so limited; C. Myers is astonishingly creative, using a wide variety of artistic techniques and tools, and his spreads are richly textured and diverse. The images are moody, haunting, and tense. Sorrow and pain are the dominant emotions, though hope, joy, tenderness and celebration make appearances as well.

As the title indicates, the book is a journey, and the verses and images progress forward through the timeline of the blues, from the end of slavery through the beginning of the civil rights movement. The pictures also show the gradual movement from country to city, the black migration from South to North. The blues timeline is printed at the end of the book, along with a glossary of symbolic terms used in blues lyrics. This back matter, in addition to the opening author's note giving an explanation of the history and meaning of the blues, provide a necessary key to understanding the layers of meaning in the verses and accompanying illustrations.

Several of the spreads are visually breathtaking, evoking deep feelings of grief and sympathy. A man stands facing away from the viewer, knee-deep in a gorgeously painted blue ocean, holding onto a fishing net. The verse speaks of "casting my love out to the sea;" the illustration speaks powerfully of loneliness. Another spread depicts two young boys sitting on the curb, one with his face buried, turning away from the other child, who is holding his hand in comfort. The very adult look of concern and hopelessness on the boy's face is striking. Coupled with the verse, which says "despair will scrape the bone/ misery loves company, blues can live alone," the illustration speaks of abuse and misery visited upon children helpless to protect themselves; a similar illustration shows two children sleeping on the same mat, head to toe, by a verse that describes their poverty. One of the strongest images in the book is a furious boy at the back of a crowd holding up a sign that says YESTERDAY A MAN WAS LYNCHED, which explicates the accompanying verse ("Strange fruit hanging high in a big oak tree") and summons an image that, while shocking, is an important part of blues history.

"Blues Journey" is neither upbeat, nor easily accessible; it a sophisticated, layered work that expands with every re-reading. Perhaps it is not the sort of book a parent will take home to read to a toddler, but it has a great deal to offer older children; in particular, the book would be an invaluable classroom tool for the study of African-American history and blues music. The Myers have expanded the boundaries of what a picturebook can do. The combined effect of the text and art is to create a visual metaphor for the music of the blues, and a powerful evocation of the black experience.

Patricia Machmiller has a command of the traditional Haiku form that is both unusual and delightful. Her knowledge of its requiremnts makes each poem seasonally aware. Her words do more than describe the beauty and color of nature; they also join movement and imagination. The reader is left with a melding of joy and sadness, just as the title conveys. This book, in form, content and design, is exceptional.

Patricia Machmiller is one of the foremost English-language writers of traditional-form haiku. Each of her poems contains a reference to a season and is written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Ms. Machmiller deftly uses the seasonal reference to underpin the mood of a poem. Each haiku in this beautifully produced book invites the reader to share the author's deeply felt experience. This book will bring joy to experienced and inexperienced haiku readers alike. A few examples from the book follow:

just looking at it
you wouldn't guess there is a
dark side -- winter moon

closet of white clothes
whiter in summer moonlight
whiter than a vow

late night eatery --
neon lights give the waiter
the look of winter

Yep, I really mean it. I have read this wonderful book 3 times and each time brings me more pleasure. The author is a master at the art and craft of this most delicate form of poetry. It is sheer beauty laid gently down on a piece of paper. This book was a gift from a friend and I must say it has reawakened my interest in poetry after a long dormant period. Don't wait - beg, borrow or steal a copy. It is an especially good read on these cold winter nights when you see a "Blush of Winter Moon".

blushing winter moon
revealed by floating clouds
awakens my interest

This haiku is not from the book. Rather, it is my feeble attempt to pay some tribute to the author. I am without talent, but greatly inspired.

The first reading was great. The second even better. I look forward to the third.

The title of this beautiful book gives some hint of the delicate, subtle, imaginative nature of it. From the aesthetics of the arrangement of the poems on the page with the versions of the Japanese of these simple, yet wonderful haiku as illustrations to the perfect images of nature in these haiku, even a non-Japanese speaking, non-expert haiku reader, as I am, can experience deep satisfaction and even joy from reading it. Some of the haiku made me teary eyed in fact. Her family life, humorous modern references, and her interior life are all here. I encourage you to try it as your first haiku book, as it was mine, and I encourage Patricia Machmiller to give us another subtle delicacy.

If you liked this book I sugjest you check out Aliki's own work and for that matter her fathers. If you would like a compleate list of that work go to Barnstones.com. She is a wonderful poet and you will find that some of her inspiration comes from the poets in "A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now". Her brother also writes wonderful poetry I recomend "Impure" by her brother. "Madly in Love" is her great work. I would suppose her book from her childhood is also wonderful. I look forward to more of her work.

This is my all-time favorite anthology; I give it as a gift whenever I can. I like the idea of presenting voices that have not always gotten the attention they deserve, but even more than that I am amazed at the the sheer range of genius. There's hardly a dud in here.

I particularly love the translation of Marina Tsveteyeva's "Poem of the End." The punctuation so accurately reflects the language and tone. I once saw another translation in one of those "Best Loved Poems of Insipid People" anthologies that was painfully stupid. I wish I could read the Russian original....

Anyway, I can't think of a better resource to introduce you to a wide range of poets you might not otherwise have access to.

I fell in love with this book when I lived for a time in the Barnstone 'barn' in Bloomington, Indiana, for a term in the early 1980s. I met both Aliki Barnstone, the editor of this text, as well as her father Willis Barnstone, a poet and scholar in his own right. Aliki Barnstone was a published poet as early as the age of nine. This was almost a guarantee for a lifelong love of poetry and literature, which comes through in this collection.

The collection begins in the very beginnings of written literature, with pieces from Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, ancient Hebrew and Aramean literature. It is rare enough for works from these time periods to have any author ascribed at all, and doubly rare for women to be credited as authors, so this represents an important collection. Barnstone also includes some ancient poems from Asian languages such as Chinese later in the collection.

The organisation is not strictly by chronology, but does follow a more-or-less chronological progression both in terms of the overall languages (Sumerian as a language preceded the Latinate languages, which preceded the English language, and so forth), and the primarily chronological listing within the language groups. Thus, one gets modern Hebrew poets in the book prior to the listing of ancient Greek poets such as Sappho and Praxilla.

Some of these more ancient pieces could be questioned editorially - the Song of Deborah (from the biblical book of Judges) and the Magnificat (from the gospel of Luke) are included because they represent women's voices, but may not be originally women's compositions as literary texts. The more modern the language or composition, the more likely it is to have an identifiable author, so one cannot fault Barnstone for striving for inclusivity to this extent.

Not only does this represent one of the best anthologies of women's poetry overall, it also represents a grand collection for many of the subsections, such as the African languages, Chinese, and international French and Spanish. Barnstone's brief commentaries throughout are accessible and useful, introducing context and biographical information to help place the literary features and meaning-ful elements in such a way that readers will more easily identify with the poetry.

This is a great collection.

This is one of my favorite poetry anthologies because it covers such a wide expanse of time and includes women's voices from all over the world. This anthology has introduced me to so many women poets that I otherwise never would have met. It is incredible to realize that women have ALWAYS and everywhere been writing, and I am always inspired by the tradition of my mothers when I read this book. As Sappho said, "Someone, I tell you/ will remember us."

I read it ... cover to cover ... a little at a time, over a month perhaps. Poetry suddenly took on another dimension for me. I selected this book because I've read a lot of poetry, and never really had a sense of the unique contribution of women to poetry. After reading this book, I could see that women had contributed entirely new ways to write about their experiences, and very little of it had ever found it's way into the traditional anthologies, such as "Norton's". If you are interested in poetry, this book is really a treasure. If you are a woman, perhaps this book will speak directly to your heart. For me, as a man, this book simply opened up again the amazing diversity of life. I'm truly thankful to Aliki and Willis Barnstone for creating this book.

"Bound by Red Clay" continues to astound the contemporary poetry market! It has been nominated for these awards: Georgia Writers Inc. Book of the Year--Poetry Category, Tufts Discovery Award, and the poem "Gopher Tortoise" was nominated for the coveted Pushcart Prize. The first run sold out in 6 months, and the second printing has sold 50% in only a month. Neca Stoller's work is indeed slated to become one of America's best.

When I ordered Neca Stoller's book I wondered if the high standard I had admired in examples of her work I'd seen on the net would be sustained through a book. It was.

My other concern was whether poetry specifically drawing on a Georgia, USA, landscape would be relevant in Australia. It was. Australian friends have validated my opinion on this.

Like the book itself the poetry is spare, direct and captures the essence of her subjects. Her focus is not distracted by any vanities. The discipline of Japanese genres shines through. The poetry is strong and credible.

I commend it to anyone with a sense of place and community, no matter where in the world they are centered.

Neca Stoller is a poet rooted in the soil of the rural South. Her latest volume is filled with images of the red clay of her home state, as well as characters from her family, uncles and aunts and cousins, former college roommates, and others who populate the Georgia backwoods.

Stoller, born in Savannah and educated at the University of Georgia during the tumultuous 60s, has spent the past several years living, working, and writing on a Georgia cattle farm. Her love of the land and the gentle rhythms of rural life sparkle in her poems. Bound by Red Clay is a slim volume of 60 selections, arranged in five titled chapters. It comes after numerous accolades for her verse from such diverse organizations as the Palomar Showcase and the Haiku Society of America.

Ms. Stoller is at once both peaceful and poignant when she focuses on the slow and repeating meter of country life. "Sultry Evening" is an evocative short poem about the pleasures of rocking on a porch hammock while crickets harmonize on summer evenings. In "Red Clay," we follow along as she wanders through sites of the Civil War, still heavy with memory. "Baling Hay" reminds us of the heat of such summer work, but rewards us with an image of " an iced mason jar/ black tea thick with sugar."

Stoller's themes throughout the book are telling: homecoming, death, lost love, the summer's heat, rural life, the social history of the South. She obviously has roots in her homeland, and that foundation creates lovely verse. The truths she finds among Georgia's red clay and pine forests ring true through time and space.

Even the title of Neca Stoller's first book of poems--Bound by Red Clay--tells us we're dealing with a Southern poet who deals with solid images. Many of these pictures painted by this Savannah poet are Southern and specifically Georgian: magnolias, lowland graveyards, 1960's protest marches, Cherokee excavations, front porches on sultry evenings, even a moonshiner by the name of "Flem." Red clay is a good image for the poets of Georgia, especially those who have left the land: Anyone who has tried to scrub the knees of a child's pants or footprints left on a beige carpet knows that red clay stains will always remain. One might be able to dull their immediate brilliance, but the brick-red trace will remain truly bound to the material.

That fading but "bound" sense of images propels the poet--and then the reader--through this book. The volume contains poems that are slim on words and fat on images. Stoller paints tiny pictures that loom large in one's verbal and pictorial memory. A pair of pinking shears "left marks like a bobcat's bite." Corpses are freed from their graves during the Flint River flood of 1994; "their hands rose and waved . . . they sat in the mud, naked-- / grinning--not a bit shy." On the morning after a lovers' tryst, the poet bittersweetly proclaims, "Such a short night, / still out of breath."

The poet reminds us we are tourists passing by a world full of scenes; the most important admonition someone can make to us is simply to look. Her haiku-like poems resonate with ideas and emotions that emerge out of the things pictured here. For instance, there's "White Chrysanthemum": "tucked between / fallen leaves / a white chrysanthemum / once pinned to my lapel / by your unsteady hands."

After a while, the poems begin to resonate with each other. Arranged into sections that Stoller calls "Chapters," the volume is like a collection of minimalist short stories: The poet's youth, a set of scenes with a former lover, her experiences during the University of Georgia's first year of integration, scenes from nature, and Stoller's own shifting and meditative identity as a poet.

Every semester, I post a new poem on my office door. I try to find one that immediately charms and then provides an opportunity for me, pausing with keys in hand, or for my students waiting for their office conference, to reflect. Stoller has given me a new volume's worth of poems to place on my door; this book will provide you with a similar opportunity to recognize and meditate.

"Bound by Red Clay," by Neca Stoller, is a collection of poems which allows the reader a brief peek into Stoller's life in Georgia during the 1960s. Stoller recounts moments through lively, visual poetry. She is unusually attuned to her surroundings and is able to describe scences with sharp detail and flowing verse. A poem titled "The Shrimp Boat" displays this talent. "Pushing through, past the channel markers, her name so faint, blurred by salt and time the bow appearing then reappearing, as her distant, tall mast crosses the marsh... Docked; still the boat' hole brims with shrimp, as the sunset slips down through the rigging, and as the full moon rises to surf the black waves." This careful attention to minutia draws the reader into Stoller's Georgia, puts the the reader right on the deck of a coastal shrimp boat. Another fresh aspect of Stoller's writung is the absence of too much emotion. Some poets go so deep into their inner thoughts the reader can become derailed and miss the meaning. But Stoller incorporates just enough feeling to touch her audience without overwhelming them. "Never meaning to grow old, in the mirror I am astonished to see age spots in a face more my mother's than my own...,"writes Stoller in "The Fire." With only a few words, Stoller captures the experience of aging. "Bound by Red Clay" is an ensemble of mature and well-written poetry which parallels life, detailing a range of experiences, experiences that run from disturbing events to moments of calmness. In one poem titled, "Sand Dollar," Stoller describes the last moments of a young soldier's life, and in another, "Rain," she explains how rain falls to the earth. It is apparent poetry for Stoller is a craft and for lovers of poetry she is a great gift.

My 5-year-old granddaughter had me read it over and over. Now she quotes it. I think she has the whole thing memorized.

Hi! You can call me StoryMaker. Bow Wow Meow Meow is a great and unique poem book that focuses on cats, dogs, and their relatives. When we got it from the library, it was a much darker pink then it is in the Amazon.com photo. I memorized many poems in it. There are great illustrations and on the back, you will probably see two paintings, one of a cat and one of the dog. If you look closely, the dog has the word "cat" written on it and the cat has the word "dog" on it. An example of one of the poems is:

"Who always yanks the tail of the Manx?"

Short poem, isn't it? Here's another short one:

"Why ocelots have lots of spots puzzles oc-elot."

Don't worry, that's not as long as they get. For example, "Dog Log" is much longer, therefore I haven't memorized it. Great poems and lots of humor, too. However, I do not like how they insult bulldogs in their bulldog poem. Everyone is giving bulldogs a bad reputation because long ago bulldogs held on to bull's noses and were swung around. Bulldogs are nicer nowadays. Overall, a nice poem book all about pets, wolves, and every type of wild cat. Signed, StoryMaker. "Gotta trust the kid's review!"

As always, Mr. Florian writes and illustrates poetry on a young child's level. His poetry is short and to the point, and his illustrations are extremely creative. "The Poodles" and "The Dalmatian" is a great example of utilizing the features of the animal in the poem format. Mr. Florian gets young children excited about poetry and shows them that poetry can be uncomplicated and fun.

As always, Mr. Florian writes and illustrates poetry on a young child's level. His poetry is short and to the point, and his illustrations are extremely creative. "The Poodles" and "The Dalmatian" is a great example of utilizing the features of the animal in the poem format. Mr. Florian gets young children excited about poetry and shows them that poetry can be uncomplicated and fun.

Poet and painter Douglas Florian barks up the right tree in the young people poetry month release, "Bow Wow Meow Meow: It's Rhyming Cats and Dogs." Twenty-one brief, humorous poems about a kennel of dog and cat varieties playfully prowl its pages, accompanied by childlike watercolor portraits of each species being analyzed in verse. (Another quirky pleasure comes from the fact that Florian's loose, playful watercolors were painted on primed brown paper bags with bits of collage.) Setting the stage for the book's first half is "Dog Log" with its deadpan "to do" list of the average dog: "Rolled out of bed./ Scratched my head./ Brought the mail./ Wagged my tail.../ Chewed a shoe --/ Table, too." The next ten spreads all focus on a different doggie from the bulldog to wolf. Typical is "The Chihuahua" which manages to hilariously evoke the sound of the little beast: "Chihuahua seems a sorry sight:/ So small in stature, weight, and height./ But it can bark a brouhaha: / Chi-hua! hua! hua! hua! hua! hua! hua!" Segregating the cats from the dogs, the second half is devoted to the felines, starting with the lilting "Cat Chat" introduction, and ends with "The Black Panther": "Black on black / With big eyes green --- / At night the panther's sight is keen,/ A stalking shadow, sly and sleek,/ That every night plays hide-and-seek." As a poetry collection, this is the best-conceived, least-pretentious and most-fun work in years. The idea is simplicity at its best, perfectly conceived and cleverly executed with a just-right balance of smarts and playfulness. The witty, insightful nature of the poems is sure to delight all ages, particularly fans of ee cummings, Ogden Nash and Bennett Cerf. Even concrete poetry admirers will pleasantly note the subtly original ways in which simple type layouts are occasionally used to enhance the rhythms and rhymes, such as the lines of "The Poodles" which are each set in a tight swirl, mimicking their subject's "oodles and oodles or curls." Doggone good. To borrow a pun from Florian, it would "puzzle ocelot" if this didn't end up an award-winner by year's end.

Reading this book was like taking a guided tour through the deep and sensitive mind of the author. Seductively and honestly written, it offers fresh elements of insight, passion, pain and respect... every time I open it's pages. From Cover to Content, it glows with talent and intelligence. I am challenged by it's entries to re-evaluate some of my own experiences ~ to take a second look for overlooked depth. You will take a trip to a land of deeper thought when reading and experiencing the author's. . Brainwalking. This book will offer you something fresh and inspiring each time you reach for it . . a regenerating favorite!

Since writing this book, I have begun the process of writing yet another. It has been a dream come true to share my personal thoughts with everyone, and hope to have my second book by mid June or so. Dreams are governed by our own minds, and we have complete control over them. If we don't chase them, they cannot come to fruition. Be inspired by my book, and think about each piece, as it may apply to your own life. Leave feedback...I also am able to sell personalized abstract artwork, as well. Let me know how I can assist any of you. Thanks for purchasing my dream.

author paints a picture in your mind, with his capability to use paper and words as if they're a canvas and paints; great work, you wouldn't think this was his first book,

This has to be one of the most twistedly inspiring books I've read. It inspires, it conjures your thoughts into a deeper sense of reality, and sets your soul FREE!!! Amazingly beautiful and dark, and a must have for any serious reader-one who appreciates a great piece of literature. The artwork on the cover is awesome, and I highly reccommend this book to everyone!!!

Brad Randolph's poetry is moving. Deep. Haunting.

His poem "Another Thought" is a tremendous example of how Mr. Randolph uses free form to put words in motion. Though short, the words pull you in. You read it again, this time slowly. Suddenly you hear it - the music. The words are notes that demand emotion from the reader. There is eloquence in this poetry. With anticipation you turn the page.

I echo the thoughts of the previous reviewers...I was taken back in time and felt Bull Jean as I read her story I longed for her to find her Mina! I cried at the end of the book. I'm a student as well as thespian and wish that one day I can bring Bull Jean alive on stage..This is a most have!

I have had this book for several years and each time I reread a story I gain a new appreciation for this book. I want more of Bull-Jean.

Sharon Bridgforth is a conjurer. She captures the voices of folks on the pages of this book whose stories would otherwise be lost in the wind. I laughed out loud, big old belly laughs, and read the stories aloud to friends and family. This writer is a descendant of Langston Hughes and all the folks who tell stories on the corner, in the back of the church, in the beauty parlor and on the porch, looking at the sunset. Her deeply felt prose and poetry is redeeming. Thank you for one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had as a reader in recent memory!

the openess to love that bulljean expresses and the ability to bounce back once a love is gone is so present in us all. I felt bulljean, when she tells Mina-Mina be my woman. Madam Bridgeforth has brought back the power of love to poetry and she didn't have to be political about.

In the haze of a Michigan Women's Festival delerium, standing next to Sharon Bridgforth in a bookstall, I bought her book, along with any other lesbian book of poetry I thought I might like. I've since reread this book repeatedly, recommended it repeatedly, and offer this opinion: If you like women, if you like to laugh, if you like a heart-breaking, soul-warming story, buy this book. Buy 12 of them.

Reviewed by Steven Hansen for Small Spiral Notebook

The terms 'memoir' and 'novel' are not as easily blended as PB&J; nor do they make half as good a sandwich. But when it comes to literature instead of low cuisine, these two forms of creative expression are hardly mutually exclusive; making fiction out of one's own life is nothing new. There are many examples of work that blurs the line between nonfiction and fiction, memoir and novel, upright citizen and (...)child.

The only question anyone who reads such an admixture should care about is: Does the author transform the highly personal into something universal?

For the most part, Diane Payne's memoir/novel hybrid Burning Tulips does.

The books only flaw is the putrid, one-note character of the father, who not only is the Vietnam War-loving stereotype of the union thug and domestic tyrant, but just happens to sexually molest his daughters, too. There may be such monsters in real life, but, at least in this instance, it doesn't make for compelling fiction. After a few run-ins with him, you're already desensitized. It's not that the author should have included some sappy detail about his secret hobby of raising orphaned bunnies, it's just that once you get to the chapter where he's in the garage slaughtering rabbits you're already so saturated with his malice that all you can do is chuckle and say, "Ho hum."

The father, though, is really nothing but a foil for the main relationship of the book between the terminally ill mother and her bridge-over-troubled-water daughter.

When Dad touches me, I can tell that he doesn't hate me, and I don't hate him. I don't hate him until he gets out of bed and starts screaming at my mother before he goes to work, once again making me invisible, forgetting that he was happy just moments ago.

The mother and daughter cling to each other like two tourists who've been abducted by a terrorist long enough to start making excuses for him, exhibiting the classic symptom of Stockholm Syndrome. In the chapter titled "The Trash Bin", the mother admonishes her daughter to not think too harshly of a vagrant bum who copped a feel. It's as if she's indirectly apologizing to her daughter for ignoring her husband's incestuous ways.

"It won't look good to say my daughter was touched by an old man. From now on, stay away from old men. They get like that. Don't you go telling anyone what he did. ... Some things need to stay in the family."

Adding to the ambiguous nature of this memoir/novel is the fact the chapters can also be looked upon as stand alone short stories, autonomous in their own right, even as they work within the larger frame of the book. In the story, "The Keyhole", the young girl spies on her post-mastectomy mother preparing to bathe.

Mom's skin is red and raw, crusted with wounds that will become thick scars. Blood drips from the stitches. She looks bruised and off balance, but not untouchable.

The daughter's impulse to mother her mother overrides her fear of being pushed away, and she opens the door and walks into the bathroom. Over the protestations of her mother, the girl picks up the soap and begins to wash her mother's back.

"You're too young to see this."
"I saw it through the keyhole, Ma. It ain't that bad."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."

As the daughter hits her teen years, she becomes a self-described 'Jesus Freak' who in the story/chapter, "Tongue-Tied" tries to proselytize at a crash pad inhabited by bikers.

"You know, I was wondering if the Road Knights might like to get involved with my church. You know, start a club called Jesus' Mufflers, or something like that."

The big man spits out his beer laughing. Leaning over the kitchen table, he pounds another guy on the shoulder, the one who is waiting for him to get back to their poker game, and says, "Did you hear that? She wants us to start a motorcycle club called Jesus' Mufflers!"

Bouncing from tragedy to comedy and a little bit of in between, these stories casually intertwine to create a lushly colored, painstakingly-rendered portrait of a family, their community, and the unsettled times in which they live.

I don't usually like reading books that take place when my parents were kids, but I read Burning Tulips and actually liked most of the short stories. The author does a good job showing what it is like to grow up. She shows the good and the bad. I think more kids should read this book.

I absolutely loved this quirky, poignant, heartbreaking novel.

Although it invites comparison with other compelling coming-of-age stories such as Sandra Cisneros' "House on Mango Street" and Eric Miles Williamson's "East Bay Grease," this is a unique work of art that goes beyond the expectations of the dysfunctional family genre.

The heroine does face some of the hardships familiar to that genre--an alcoholic, lecherous father, a mother dying of cancer, the sort of relatives that try to discourage smart girls from reading too much, and the humiliations of poverty.

Yet it is not just the unusual setting--a working-class neighborhood in Michigan settled by three generations of Dutch immigrants--that makes this interesting. The reader is drawn in by the utter dauntlessness and insistent decency of the heroine, who, despite her own considerable psychic injuries, spends her indignation and compassion on the penned-up dogs, the little kids who get bullied at school, and most of all, on her slowly dying mother.

If you can imagine a combination of Antigone and Pippi Longstockings and Bernard Shaw's version of Joan of Arc, you will have some idea of this character's appeal. Yet she is neither self-righteous, self-pitying, sentimental, nor bitter.

But don't try to imagine her--just read the book. It is as hard to describe fully as it is to over-praise.

Having been disappointed so often, I've become somewhat wary of the contemporary novel. Burning Tulips, rich with honest experience, is a surprising exception; the book successfully captures the rare tenderness of a daughter for her mother.

Reminiscent of the writings of Joyce Carol Oates and Tillie Olsen, Burning Tulips is a story of coming of age. It's the story of an adolescent's struggle to find stability in a world where there seems to be little one can trust .

In my opinion, this novel would make terrific reading for high school students. The fast pace and sharp description are guaranteed to hold the interest of even the most jaded young reader, and the narrative is a testament to the power of the honest truth, told without apology or resentment or hyperbole.

Reviewed for Nights and Weekends by John Sheirer

The nameless young girl at the center of Diane Payne's wonderful Burning Tulips is asked to write about an "important human" for a school assignment. She chooses instead to write about the family dog because, in her own words, "... it seems like all my important humans would make a sad story."

Such is life for Payne's protagonist, who grows from age five to eighteen and must deal with her mother's cancer, her father's abuse, her family's poverty, her growing sexuality, her constant spiritual crisis, her sense of social injustice during the turbulent 1960s-even her poor penmanship. With so much stacked against her, readers might expect a stereotypical self-pitying child/adolescent/teenager. She does experience plenty of anger, fear, shame, and sadness, but Payne has crafted a complex character brimming with humor, hope, strength, love, and a burning sense that her life has an abundant future despite her deprived and isolated present.

Payne's work has appeared widely in print and internet literary publications. In fact, many sections of Burning Tulips first appeared as outstanding stand-alone pieces, usually under the banner of "memoir." Whether this book is a partially fictionalized memoir or fiction based on the author's own experiences is an interesting question. But more important is how Payne deftly employs a memoirist's psychological insight along with a novelist's skill in structure, pace, and narrative voice to create a haunting book that resonates authentic depth of emotion.

Burning Tulips comes to us through Red Hen Press, a lively independent publisher bringing out some terrific poetry, memoir, and fiction that would never find a place with today's megapublishers focused on high-concept bestsellers. Bestsellers have their place: the beach or long airplane flights-situations where passing the time is more important than challenging the heart and mind with literature. Discerning readers will instead be far more satisfied with the excellent Burning Tulips than any garden-variety bestseller. In short, it's a beautiful book well worth reading.