Reviews

They AbideElizabeth Dougherty Dolan’s moving collection of poems, They Abide, offers glimpses into a family album, alternating posed smiles with shocking candids. What is most consistent here is the author’s questioning of herself and of family history: “I missed my mother…. // But now I’d like to know why she, a baby nurse, / was spic and spanning phones and files. / Maybe she was sick of babies, / sick of us…” (“Split Session”). Like the images in a family album, Dolan’s poems freeze moments, revealing their subjects and their surroundings in sometimes crystal clear detail: “As a child I feared breathing lest I break / the blue glass slipper on her bureau” (“My Godmother Outlived Them All”). The subject of childhood is central to this collection: most poems discuss the childhood of the narrator, but other poems discuss her husband’s childhood in Ireland, a baby’s first awkward steps, a young student of the narrator idealizing an absent father. The collection weaves a series of references throughout, such as the execution of Ethel Rosenberg, firmly establishing the poet’s relationship to history and to culture. The poet’s concern with issues of motherhood and family responsibility carries much of the collection and in using so personal and believable a set of images and anecdotes, Dolan engages her reader. These poems are nostalgic – for Old Mother Ireland, for Old New York – but their nostalgia goes beyond simply revisiting the past. In each snapshot of a poem, she interrogates her personal history. Elizabeth Dougherty Dolan’s They Abide uses nostalgia to examine and learn from the casual, familiar suffering of childhood.
- Courtney Bambrick

Crossing WatersJourney and passage are essential themes running through Ray Garman’s collection, Crossing Waters. In accessible, everyday language, Garman harnesses the sacred, reaching ever beyond the words themselves and into the open spaces around them. The reader travels through time (the collection is organized in sections named for the seasons) and through space with Garman who seems to consider the soul to be the most powerful vehicle. The “growing up” of an American man may be a familiar (to some, perhaps too-familiar) theme for a collection, but Garman’s emphasis on the spiritual – and on the spiritual in the sensual – allows the reader something more to consider here. In the poem, “Twenty Something Coffee,” he weaves many of his central ideas: “We flush / the metaphorical phlegm / from corpus community / as we break bread….” Later in the collection, these themes reappear to an older, perhaps even wiser speaker: “I am made / moderate / with age, / unable / to wave / a wand / and feed / the world.” Garman succeeds in tempering the weight of his material with a great joy in his language: “…earth mother magic / brings sleep / with thickets / of crickets…” (“Celestial Juke Joint”) or “I tingle / the tangle of jangled / nerve endings…” (“The Boys Swim”). Garman, however, never quite overcomes the tone of self-help/spirituality: “Where would the truth live / if it were absolutely honest?” (“Truth Pick-up”) or “I’d like / to choose / the path of wisdom / and kindness” (“My Choice”). Garman’s “searching poet” schtick is doubtlessly sincere here, and his transcendent moments of linguistic glee give the reader plenty to consider and enjoy along this path.
- Courtney Bambrick

Poemas de Filadelfia: Philadelphia PoemsSandro Chiri’s poems are dreamlike despite their very clear and exact details. In a poem such as “Vislumbro la ciudad” (“I See the City”), characters emerge from a fog of memory: “…I set out to see this / City with the shape / Of a flirtatious woman, / To smell / Its bars…” The poems certainly are “de Filadelfia” and the smoky, foggy, snowy city serves as a fitting backdrop for these meditations on foreignness and belonging. The poems feel to be smudged, backward glances through dark shades, but Chiri continues to reach out to many “yous” of his poems, including his readers. The first two poems in this collection are addressed “A mi lectora” and “A mi lector,” to the poet’s female and male readers. Poe and Whitman are conjured in separate pieces, their ghosts contributing to the collection’s alternately mysterious and forthcoming mood. Occasionally, the English translation by Raymond McConnie is too on-the-nose literal, and the spirit of the original Spanish is muted as in the poem, “Yo también escribí un poema de amor en inglés.” “It happened at the corner, by the traffic light, / Where without any shame / our mouths were joined” offers only the strictest meaning of “Fue en la esquina, frente al semáforo, / y sin ninguna vergüenza / nuestras bocas se juntarón.” Thankfully, English and Spanish versions of each poem face one another, so the taste and intention of the original is available to the reader. A series of photos by Robert Dewey at the end of the collection offer a visual representation of the images conjured by Chiri throughout: snowy, shadowy, solitary Philadelphia. The final poem of the collection, “Relámpago,” or “Flash of Lightning,” casts the poet as reader, “lector” of books of physics wherein he finds a poem: “like the rivers of the night, / on the infinite sky / Books of Physics / Travel and dream.” Travel and dream are certainly elements of this collection which assembles a series of snapshot moments, flashes not of lightning, but of a camera. Sandro Chiri’s Poemas de Filadelfia: Philadelphia Poems express an engagement in and understanding of place that a native of this city might never quite achieve.

-Courtney Bambrick

Primitive MoodIn his newest book, Primitive Mood, David Moolten picks at humanity’s darkest tendencies and deepest capacities for suffering. Like a patchwork quilt of the twentieth century, the poems in this volume handle violence and loss, questioning and disillusionment, determination and resilience. In quiet, authoritative and incantatory language, Moolten probes the fabric of culture in the West – from the Brothers Grimm to Arshile Gorky – for material that bears his project witness. What emerges is a densely woven and engaging collection of poems, delivered with rhythmic diction, and sometimes reminiscent of spoken word poetry in its rolling momentum and charged endings. With all of the darkness of war, genocide and internment that Moolten lays bare in this volume, there is also a light that enters through the “aperture” of his writing to illuminate the everyday people silhouetted against the dark backdrop of history, reworking their own suffering into beautiful stories. It is this creative power of narrative that stands against the destruction evident in human history in Primitive Mood, and which is also present in Moolten’s powerful and intelligent writing. Moolten’s language is crisp and evocative, and lends itself well to his project of storytelling and remembering.

- Valeria Tsygankova

Start with the TroubleThe speaker of Daniel Donaghy’s Start with the Trouble is trying to bury his past under newness, to “fly open and free” from his memories of a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood. The beauty of his poems is in their awareness of the difficulty of such a project, in the way they recognize no “clear line between trouble and no trouble.” The book’s landscape of injury, disappearance and accidental death manifests itself in a series of extremely personal memories, through which the author draws a map of his own past. Start with the Trouble follows the trajectory of his thoughts as they reverse into a world that refuses to be forgotten – a world full of expectedly difficult relationships and empty promises. Donaghy handles his material honestly, if at times too ingenuously, in metaphors that occasionally limit meaning more than they let it grow. But Donaghy’s goal is simple and direct. He wants to end his book with possibilities expanding from the page – with the promise of a new future in the shape of his young daughter. Expanding the possibilities of his language would have helped the book move further in this direction, but the power of the personal voice sustains it well.

Philly Fiction 2In the second edition of the Philly Fiction series, editors Josh McIlvain, Christopher Munden, Greg November, and Tracy Parker selected nineteen stories inspired by the city of Philadelphia and its surrounding landscape. Each story represents how the people, the buildings, and the spirit of Philadelphia have aroused the creative energy in all kinds of storytellers – but the reader does not have to be familiar with the city in order to enjoy the stories in Philly Fiction 2. “Piece of Mind,” by Benjamin Matvey, is a wickedly bizarre and entertaining story that juxtaposes cannibalistic desires with those of the libido. Elise Juska’s “Northeast Philly Girls” expertly examines the differences between North Philly girls and their suburban counterparts, as well as showing the reader scenes of universal adolescent awkwardness and familial tension. Jan Kargulewicz’s story, “A Cormorant Dries its Wings,” is a moving tale of a newly pregnant young woman trying to establish a solid relationship with her father. “Return to Ithaca,” a nominee for the 2008 Pushcart Prize and originally published in Philadelphia Stories, is a well-told story chronicling the falling apart and attempted reconciliation of a family. These stories and many others make Philly Fiction 2 well worth the reasonable $12 price.

-John Drain

Building a Home with My HusbandOccupied with giving talks around the country, restoring relationships with two siblings and dealing with a mother’s illness, all Rachel Simon needs is a year-and-a-half-long home renovation to add to her sea of troubles. In this painstakingly detailed memoir, Simon exposes the thought processes that kept her sane during this dramatic time, convincing readers that it takes just a little goodwill towards humankind to patch up mistakes, smooth over rough spots with romantic partners and see what we refuse to accept in a brand-new light. Simon’s narrative guides readers through the ordeals of construction and tough relationships with husbands, sisters, mothers, contractors and friends – occasionally diving into older memories – to find lessons in acceptance and tolerance at the end of the day. Simon invites you to enter her classroom and learn to be a student of satisfaction, of “weaving something good from so much that’s bad,” of “renovating” the ability to love. High points include a natural gas explosion.

-Valeria Tsygankova

The Mysterious Life of the HeartLawrence Olivier and Meryl Streep, often referred to as “actors” actors, are admired for their commitment to craft and technique--appreciated by those who know how difficult it is to be an actor of such quality and by those who just appreciate a good show. The Sun holds much the same place in the world of literary magazines. Sy Safranski has been publishing monthly since 1974, and in this collection of essays, poetry, and fiction he has gathered a poignant, honest, and sometimes painful look at love. A deft mix of genres and subjects, Safranski advises in his forward, “…[to]read aloud to a loved one, by candlelight, between the hours of 10 P.M. and 2 A.M. But using this book to seduce someone or to justify the unbelievably selfish way you acted last week is expressly prohibited.” Philadelphia author, Denise Gess’s essay, “The Kitchen Table: An Honest Orgy” alone is worth the price. Gess is a startling courageous writer and never lets herself off the hook. The other pieces in the collection are equally as good whether read by candlelight or not.

-Carla Spataro

Father's DayKeith Gilman’s primary character in Father’s Day is Louis Klein, PI, who “suspected that his father stayed awake because his dreams were worse than his waking memories.” That was Klein’s experience too. They had both been Philadelphia cops. His father was killed in the line of duty. His mother was murdered. His best friend, also a cop, supposedly committed suicide. Klein had pushed the limits of his badge a little too hard. He knows the politics of the police force as well as he knows the bars on every street corner. Louis Klein was likened to a rat. They don’t change, they’re not liked and “their best quality is loyalty, especially to their family.”

Father’s Day is written with hard-core believability. It has drama, tension and poignancy. Keith Gilman is also a cop. And he’s an author you’ll look forward to reading again.

--Christina Weaver, author of the memoir, What You Lose on the Roundabout

Love ParkI’ve lived here 20 years, and in my pea-brain, Philadelphia’s go-to ethnicity has always been Italian. Yes, the pale WASPs still rule the Main Line, but for me, Philadelphia is all Italian, all the time. Or it was, until I fell deeply into LOVE PARK, Jim Zervanos’ well-written, heartfelt novel about a Greek Gen-X-er’s coming of age in the era of skateboards, AIDS, bisexuality, and olive-oil-scented Mrs. Robinsons who dig boys and their dads (even when they happen to be Greek Orthodox priests.) Read it and discover a whole new flavor of Philadelphia story –one full of dolmades, not cannoli. Who knew?

---Kelly Simmons, author of Standing Still and coming soon, The Bird House.