Editions Bibliotekos: Preparing Another Book Launch

Editions Bibliotekos: Preparing Another Book Launch: The human factor. What is that? The phrase is used by one of the many people who answered our call for fiction for a nature-themed anthol...

AIRS & VOICES, a book of poetry

Paula Bonnell

My personal lawyer is also a writer of crime thrillers. I can deal with that, most people need a day job, and he finds his material in his cases. Now here comes Paula Bonnell, a practicing lawyer who writes poetry. So where to start? I tried reading these poems as if I did not know that they were written by someone with “esquire” after their name. Then I remembered that Wallace Stevens was also a lawyer, albeit a corporate one.

Ms. Bonnell’s book of poems, “Airs & Voices” was the winner of the 2006 John Ciardi Prize for poetry. Juror Mark Jarman writes in the forward that Paula Bronnell’s voice “is fresh and original. Though the poet never labors to be significant, even the slightest poem lingers in memory.” And Maxine Kumin adds: “Bonnell’s voice is low key but full of quirky insights.”

The more I read these poems, the less I knew about Ms. Bronnell, or perhaps the more. Was I struggling too hard to find the lawyer behind each one. Is there a virtue in separating ones work from ones art—or is it a sin? And so I came to the poem “Evidence.” Now here comes a good bit of disclosure, I thought, but alas it was only about a curious woodpecker. I personally was taken by the strangeness of the imagery in this and other poems.

The book is filled with many “quirky insights” mixed with questions to ponder, such as these words from “The Faraway Nearby”:

I could live in the next life

If only I could get to it.

To quote Paula Bonnell from an interview she gave to Heather Clark: “We live in the present—or do we? How much space does ‘the present’ occupy between ‘then’ and ‘when’”? Reading Ms. Bonnell’s book may put us closer to finding out.

AIRS & VOICES

ISBN 978-1-886157-62-0-0, 74 pages, trade paperback, $13.95

BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City

www.umkc.edu/bkmk

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LIGHTNING AND ASHES

A Collection of Poems

by John Guzlowski

WHAT MORE CAN ONE SAY about this collection of poems than has not already been said by the Polish poet and Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz. “In [Guzlowski’s] poems the land of his parents and the work camps are always present, although at the same time they are only part of his poetic repertoire. [T]here are a lot of completely different poems . . . free of the burden of the past. This slim volume even astonished me with its doubleness. The first part summons precisely the camp images from the life of the author’s parents, who were treated by the Nazis like beasts of burden. Their awkward language, because they were both half-literate, was for the Nazi’s a language of mules. The second part reveals an enormous ability for grasping reality at some distance.”

In Lightning and Ashes Guzlowski takes on his father’s vision, through his own eyes, to recreate a past that he has not known, and then uses his father’s eyes to recreate a youth that he has lived. In this way he becomes both the actor and the audience in a drama of his own creation. The poems cause us to speculate how the author’s family might have live had WWII not happened, and then relates, unforgettably, what actually did happen, and its effects on the family long after the war was over.

Although the death camps in WWII may seem as an unlikely topic for poetry, and perhaps a matter that has been too much explored, Guzlowski’s sensitive, yet strong use of the language brings a new dimension to the subject. These poems remind us we should not forget that human suffering is universal. What went on in these camps in the 1940s still goes on today; brought on by the same reasons of race, religion and economic differences.

And my father will shovel

in terror and think of the words

he will not say: Sirs, we are all

brothers, and if this war ever ends,

please, never tell your children

what you’ve done to me today.

I must admit that I rarely read a book of poetry completely, more often skipping to individual poems that catch my fancy, but Lightning and Ashes was an exception. I do not hesitate to give this collection my highest recommendation.

~Pearson Oldmitz

STEEL TOE BOOKS

Western Kentucky University

$12.00, 86 Pages ISBN 978-0-9743264-5-0

http://Lightning-and-Ashes.blogspot.com/

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Louisa May Alcott as a Detective

This is a reissue, in trade paperback, of a book originally published in 2004. Upon rereading the book I see that my original opinion has not changed, in fact I enjoyed the book even more the second time around when, knowing the plot, I could concentrate on the author's rich prose style. The new format makes the book even easier to read, and the new cover design is more appealing than the previous one. The publisher is still Penguin but the book is now out under the Obsidian imprint. Alison Lurie writing in the The New York Review of Books calls it: "A historically accurate and entertaining mystery series." The two other volumes will be reissued in the coming months.

A new sleuth has arrived on the scene, the author Louisa May Alcott. Ms. Alcott was known to have written a few thrillers herself when not writing things like "Little Women." Anna Maclean has gone back and recreated this aspect of Louisa's life with amazing fidelity; however Ms. Alcott does not just write mysteries, but also solves them.

Written with the precision and skill of her historical novels, Jean Mackin creates a minor masterpiece in her debut as Anna Maclean, mystery writer. The plot winds itself in and around pre-Civil War Boston with the beauty and complexity of a Medieval tapestry. The story is entangled with numerous characters functioning on many levels, often seeming to contradict themselves, leading us down many blind alleys. I must admit I could not put this book down. Just when I thought I had figured out who the guilty party was I discovered some new reason why they did not do it. The ending is quite a surprise. If you are looking for an entertaining historical mystery, and value good writing, I give this book my highest recommendation.

ISBN 978-0-451-23324-0 $14.00 U.S. 16.50 CAN. 319 pages

COLORS: Passages through Art, Asia, and Nature

A Review
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Sarah Sutro’s book, COLORS: Passages through Art, Asia, and Nature, can perhaps be described by Bill McKibben’s words from the preface: “This book is quite literally about local color—about where color came from, or came from before it was synthesized and globalized in the same manner as food and music and pretty much everything else. When that happened much of the meaning drained out of color, just as it drained out of everything else.” However, the book also is about much more.

COLORS is about the life of an artist, and how art grows inside of a person. It is about how an artist can see art in the most insignificant of things, and how, once that art has been discovered, it must be brought out, despite all obstacles set in front of its creation.

In this book we learn of the author’s, who is also a visual artist, quest for beauty and truth in Nature. Sarah Sutro is an “artist’s artist,” as well as a teacher, a wife and mother, an intrepid traveler, and a cancer survivor. In her travels to many places exotic and mundane, all described in the book, Sarah is always looking, and learning, and making art. Hers is a pure and precious cultural quest, producing work that reaches a wide audience.

COLORS is a fine book, well written and filled with interesting stories, history, memories, observations, morals, and recipes for dyes as well as food. If you have never thought about why things are certain colors, or how this affects your life, you should read this book.

Highly Recommended

BLUE ASIA PRESS
N. Adams, MA (USA)
Paperback, 129 pages, ISBN: 9781456373337

AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING

A 1966 VILLAGE VOICE listing describes Stephen Poleskie’s The Bird Film as “allegorical slapstick.” That’s half right. While the comical chaos of the film certainly is slapstick, it’s hard to find much in the way of allegory, and this is to the film’s credit.

The Bird Film opens with an American flag, then a figure in binoculars and a funny hat (the “birdwatcher”) rises into the shot. The political viewer, aware that this film was made in a famously turbulent era, might be tempted to begin reading allegorically at this point, but would find that reading stunted, probably less than a minute later when the birdwatcher is attacked by an actor in a bear mask, who is in turn attacked by the Indian, who wears a box on his head that is painted in the “exotic” colors you might expect one of any number of cartoon Indians to wear. Instead of allegory, The Bird Film gives us something much more valuable: a short work made by young artists who are clearly enjoying experimentation with the form

The Bird Film is an 18 minute chase scene. Troublesome narrative components such as plot and character are left out, though to say that the chase simply serves to move the film forward wouldn’t be true. There is a certain order being followed here. After all, the film begins with a birdwatcher, who chases after the bird (played by Warhol superstar Deborah Lee). A bear chases the birdwatcher. An Indian chases the bear. As it turns out, the birdwatcher, the bear, and the Indian, all end up chasing the bird.

Scenes range from an imaginary environment constructed in a Manhattan loft to a creek, where the bird lady performs interpretive dance in the water, to a pretty pasture that was the farm of Elaine de Kooning (the film’s associate producer).

Deborah Lee plays the bird with the aloof grace of a dancer performing for no one but herself. She pauses from time to time to pose and reflect. As a director, Poleskie indulges himself by letting Lee poetically extend her arms, bend her legs, and arch her back, imbuing the short with a dream-like quality to break up the slapstick of the chase.

Watching The Bird Film once through, you enjoy it for its levity, strangeness, and photographic beauty. A second time through, you begin to notice things you didn’t notice the first time around. A man in a wheelbarrow reads a Daily News with the headline, “Gangs Raid 2 Subway Trains.” The next time we see him, about 20 seconds later, he is reading a New York Post with the headline, “Break In Miss.” Go ahead and watch it a third time. Your enjoyment is likely to increase with each viewing, but if you want to find out what it all means, you may want to take your business elsewhere. The Bird Film is a celebration more than it is a statement.

My favorite scene in The Bird Film occurs at about the 13 minute mark. After dodging the birdwatcher, the bear, and the Indian, the bird pauses on a rock to pose before a spring. The soundtrack at this point turns from hectic chase scene instrumentation to ethereal vocals. Deborah Lee turns to the camera, smiles, and lifts her arms in a gesture that says “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?” In the same way the newspaper headlines hint at a world somewhere on the outside, Lee’s gesture, a shot that would have been edited out of a more “serious” film, speaks to the youthful chaos and joy that beats at this work’s center.

Stephen Poleskie, director and writer of The Bird Film (1966), is an Ithaca based artist, writer, and photographer. His artwork is in the collections of numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tate Gallery in London. His writing has appeared in journals such as American Writing and Essays & Fictions, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Poleskie wrote and directed The Bird Film. The Bird Film will be showing this Friday, May 6, at Arcades Project. The film will be looped continually throughout the night.

David Nelson Pollock is a founder of Arcades Project and a co-founding editor of Essays & Fictions.

Tagged as: Arcades Project, Bird Film, David Nelson Pollock, Stephen Poleskie, The Commons

ACORN'S CARD: a review

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ACORN'S CARD is a novella and two accompanying short stories. In the title novella an AWOL soldier returns to the downstairs after thirty-three years of hiding in his mother’s attic to find the old woman dead. But what should he do with her body? He can’t just call an undertaker—he is supposed to have died years ago. And how will he provide for himself, as his mother has left little money in the house? By chance a pre-approved credit card application arrives in the mail. John Acorn fills it out and a card is issued to him. Now he can buy whatever he wants, with no thought of how he will pay when the statement comes. He decides to buy a used hearse and drive his mother to the cemetery and bury her. But first John will take his mother on a ride, during which he finds the world considerably changed from what he remembered it to be. Meanwhile, the hearse has a plan of its own. You will be surprised by the ending of this strange and fascinating story.

In the first of the short stories an immigrant plumber bribes a policeman into not giving him a traffic ticket with a loaf of bread; while in the other a plastic garbage bag flies around the sky looking for a new beginning.

Poleskie’s plots are brilliantly conceived and original. He is a skillful writer with a brilliant sense of the language, at times probing, yet glorious and magical, much in the manner of Bruno Schulz. If you prefer your reading a bit out of the ordinary, and you still understand what a metaphor is, Acorn’s Card is an excellent choice.

Highly Recommended

Acorn’s Card

Onager Editions, 2011, ISBN 978 -1- 60047 – 558 – 0

Paperback, 125 pages, $12.00 USD

http://www.amazon.com/Acorns-Card-Stephen-Poleskie/dp/1600475582/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1304216133&sr=1-1