Welcome to the 203rd Virtual Poetry Circle!

Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s books suggested. Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

Also, sign up for the 2013 Dive Into Poetry Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry. Check out the stops on the 2013 National Poetry Month Blog Tour and the 2012 National Poetry Month Blog Tour.

Today’s poem is from Lynn Levin’s Miss Plastique (my review):

The Notebook (page 33)
            An adaptation of Gaspara Stampa's Sonnet CXXXII

I ask for Love's attention through my tears--
Love who can scarcely turn his head my way
though I ask a thousand times a day.
The reason? Those other lips about his ears.
His silence rips my heart, it tears
my dress, the pages of my books. Pray
how can this be? I gave my heart and soul away
to him.  There's nothing left in me.  He cares
little for my grief.  I feel my blood run
like an icy stream of envy, dread.
He was my life's great joy and reason.
Now I die in love.  I live in pain.  In bed
I have a notebook and a quill.  Let him shun
me.  On these sheets he's mine, though I am dead.

What do you think?

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark
Paperback ARC: 432 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Thinking of You by Jill Mansell is another romp in the English countryside.  Ginny Holland has a problem when she’s in emotional turmoil — her mind wanders and the tasks at hand just disappear from her consciousness.  Even when she’s worried about her daughter’s first year at college in Bristol and away from home, Ginny is still not immune to the charms of a hot-looking man in an antique shop.  But while she’s browsing and happily daydreaming about the man in the shop, he catches her red-handed with a shoplifted item.  Mansell has an uncanny way of bringing together the most divergent plots, weaving in secondary characters that are just as fun and hopeless as the main character.  While her books generally have happy endings and wrap-up relationships pretty neatly, they still provide a few hours of escape that can lift any mood.

“‘Watching how it’s done?’ Evidently amused, Evie paused on her way to table six with two plates of mussels.  ‘Can’t you just feel all those flirty female hormones in the air?’ With a wink, she added, ‘Good old Finn, he hasn’t lost his touch.’

‘I can see that.’  As Finn crossed the room in order to answer the ringing phone, every female eye followed him.

‘You’d better watch out.  You could be next.’

Ginny grinned because the idea was so ludicrous.  ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen.  He’d be too worried I might nick his wallet.’”  (page 119 ARC)

Beyond the fun, faulted characters, Mansell has a gift for humorous and witty dialogue that will leave readers in stitches.  Ginny is a mother looking to hang onto her daughter Jem for as long as she can, but reality gets in the way when she advertises for a flatmate and ends up with a young woman who is unable to get over her ex-fiance and is utterly depressed.  Mansell’s books aren’t just about the mistakes we make, but also the silver linings of those mistakes.  Without advertising for the flatmate, Ginny never would have been forced by the incessant ex-fiance talk to go out and get a job and a social life.

Even though the main romantic relationship is not only predictable, but also a little less developed than some of the others, Mansell excels at creating other relationships that are dynamic and complicated.  From Ginny’s relationship with the vivacious and slutty Carla to Ginny’s relationship with her grown daughter Jem, each of these relationships provide the characters with a foil and with a sounding board when they get into hot water.

Thinking of You by Jill Mansell is a soap opera on paper with characters in college and middle-age, each striving to find out where they want to go when they hit that inevitable fork in the road.  While some choose the right path, others stumble onto the wrong one for awhile before falling through the bush onto the other side.  But there are still some that blissfully walk the same path they always have.

About the Author:

Jill Mansell lives with her partner and children in Bristol, and writes full time. Actually that’s not true; she watches TV, eats fruit gums, admires the rugby players training in the sports field behind her house, and spends hours on the internet marvelling at how many other writers have blogs. Only when she’s completely run out of displacement activities does she write.

Other Mansell books reviewed:

• A Walk in the Park
• Nadia Knows Best
• To the Moon and Back
• Staying at Daisy’s
• Take a Chance on Me
• Rumor Has It
• Perfect Timing
• Millie’s Fling
• Miranda’s Big Mistake
• An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Book Source:  Poet provided me with a copy
Paperback: 58 pages
I’m an Amazon Affiliate

Miss Plastique by Lynn Levin reminded me of the comic book character Plastique in that many of the female narrators in this collection are very explosive. And the cover of this collection is very ironic, with the sweet looking Barbie doll decked out in a corset-like shirt and chain necklaces, giving a hint of her edginess.  In one of the first poems, “Miss Plastique,” Levin references the explosive nature of C-4 and how it must be handled with care, much like the narrator. Levin examines the notion of judging a book by its cover, and how something that doesn’t look dangerous can be exactly that.

Some poems have a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, like in “The Foundations of Poetry,” the narrator recounts some advice from an English teacher long ago, “‘You should expose/your thoughts and feelings/when you write poems,’ taught Mrs. Hay./’In verse, a little thigh is fine/and you may dream your truth into your lines./Only do not lie to yourself.’//”  (page 16)  These poems contain material that can be explosive if not handled with care, but in Levin’s hands the tension in the poem is sometimes just enough to sustain it without a bomb going off, but in other poems, there is just no other way to express the emotion that has been building.

A selection from: Please Understand (page 39)

I love to say your name, it's like candy
in my mouth.  I love to say your name,
it's like saltwater taffy.
When I steal a look at your eyes
it's like I'm shoplifting in a jewelry store,
and my heart's arrested
when you catch me.

Levin has a gift in that she knows precisely when to change the mood in the poem, turning the tables on the reader, who thinks there is a love sonnet but realizes soon enough that the object of the poem is no longer a love interest but someone who has spurned the narrator. In the latter section of the book, Lilith appears — a long used symbol of rebellion for feminists — and she alongside Eve stands tall and ready to act, rather than simper and wait for things to change.

Miss Plastique by Lynn Levin is about taking charge, being a force to be reckoned with, and standing tall in the face of adversity — whether its a mundane as a dilemma as choosing the best outfit or as dire as escaping a violent relationship.  But there are moments of vulnerability in these poems as well as explosions.  These poems will make sure readers are kept on their toes.

This is my 22nd book for the Dive Into Poetry Challenge 2013.

Book Source:  Library
Paperback: 308 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate:

The Last Van Gogh by Alyson Richman, which was our May book club selection (unfortunately, I missed this meeting due to obligations at the 2013 Gaithersburg Book Festival), is based on true events in near the end of Vincent Van Gogh’s life in Auvers, France, in the 1890s.  Told from the point of view of Marguerite Gachet, a story unfolds not so much about Van Gogh but about the cloistered life of a young woman trapped inside her own family home by not only an overbearing and controlling father, but also family secrets.  More than that, it is a tribute to an artist and the tension between that art and the desire to have a normal life, as well as the struggle between family obligation and one’s own desires.

“For a home that had so many colors and vibrant paintings on its walls, there were still so many shades of gray between us.”  (page 182)

Richman does really well in using painting techniques and colors to describe the scenes in Auvers, and it is almost as if the reader has stepped inside one of Van Gogh’s paintings and is walking around among the village’s people.  Another surprising element is that the chapter headings, which often appear in some translated works, are less in-your-face about each chapter’s contents.  The headings also add to the atmosphere of the novel, reinforcing the painting and French aspects of the novel.

“I had gone out to do my errands, as I always did in the early afternoon.  It was a warm, radiant day in May.  The sky was cornflower blue, the sun the color of crushed marigolds.  I have to confess that I walked a little slower that day when I passed by the station.  I knew approximately which train he would be arriving on.  So I walked with smaller steps than usual, carrying my basket of eggs and my loaves of bread.”  (page 1)

From the moment readers meet Marguerite, they can see her rebellious nature, even though her daily tasks showcase her obedience to her father at every turn.  When the secrets begin to unravel, she finds herself less torn between duty and desire and more willing to follow her own mind and heart, even if it means getting caught.  Her father is the most irritating and self-absorbed character as he seeks to ingratiate himself into the artistic community by claiming his tinctures are actual cures.  And the son, Paul, is just as bad as he attempts to please his father at every turn and garner his favor.  The only way he can gain that favor is through Marguerite’s downfall, which she brings about on her own during her fateful meeting with Van Gogh.

The Last Van Gogh by Alyson Richman is a rich story in character, setting, and nuance.  Van Gogh’s perceptive nature as an artist shines through in his painting of Dr. Gachet as an aging man with sallow features, but it also shines through in his paintings of Marguerite at the piano and in the garden.  A love story in painting that comes alive with each brush stroke, only to be mired by the rain streaked canvases touched by tinctures that are misused and the controlling desires of a man torn between propriety and his obsession with art.

About the Author:

Alyson Richman is the author of “The Mask Carver’s Son,” “The Rhythm of Memory (formerly published as Swedish Tango),” The Last Van Gogh,” and the national best-seller, “The Lost Wife.” She loves to travel, cook, ride her yellow bicycle, and do ballet. She currently lives in New York with her husband and two children.

This is my 33rd book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Mailbox Monday (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch. May’s host is 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

The meme allows bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received for review:

1.  Controlled Hallucinations by John Sibley Williams, which I received from the poet.

Filled with impassioned logic and musicality, John Sibley Williams’ debut collection strives to control the uncontrollable by redefining the method of approach. In these compact poems, so edged in dark corners and the strenuous songs of beauty and identity, Williams establishes a unique world of contradictions and connections that bridge the foreign and the familiar. Moving through art and history, through apocalyptic visions and family, into and back out of the paradox of using language to express languagelessness, Controlled Hallucinations weaves universal themes and images with the basic human reality of touch, word, and what is lost in their translation.

What did you receive?

Welcome to the 202nd Virtual Poetry Circle!

Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s books suggested. Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

Also, sign up for the 2013 Dive Into Poetry Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry. Check out the stops on the 2013 National Poetry Month Blog Tour and the 2012 National Poetry Month Blog Tour.

Today’s poem is from Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Unexplained Fevers: (my review) (This one is for Ti over at Book Chatter)

Sleeping Beauty's Insomniac Twin
             an homage to Haruki Murakami's After Dark

I thought you might recognize me
without the dress and haircut.
Black eyeglasses and a thick book
are enough to dissuade most of the nightcrawlers,
the men looking for a good time and easy lay.
If you come with me, you'll cower at the mafia men
at midnight, pimps and broken prostitutes wrapped in sheets.
We'll narrowly miss being hit by a car.
The late night coffee shops croon their old, seedy jazz tunes.
Come with me, through the open mouth of the city,
where we will rescue the other half of our souls.
If you fall asleep, you'll miss what's right in front of you.

What do you think?

Tomorrow between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., the fourth annual Gaithersburg Book Festival will offer authors, poets, and activities for kids.

Among the authors I’m looking forward to are these:

• Maryanne O’Hara, author Cascade, which I loved!
• Tara Conklin, author of The House Girl, which I liked!
• Lauren Leto, author of Judging a Book By Its Lover, which I adored!

And those poets on the Poetry in the Afternoon Panel, I’m moderating are:

• Sarah Arvio, who wrote night thoughts: 70 dream poems and notes from an analysis
• Sally Keith, who wrote The Fact of the Matter
• Eric Pankey, author of Trace

I hope that if you are in the area, you’ll stop by the panel or at least see some great authors.  This is always a great family event and shares the love of books.

Book Source: Purchased at Novel Places
Paperback, 68 pgs
I am an Affiliate of Amazon.com

Trace by Eric Pankey, published by Milkweed Editions on 100 percent post-consumer waste paper, is a melancholy collection of poems that explores faith and the vacillation between believing and not.  Combining science and philosophy with observations of nature, Pankey examines the impact of life upon life, memory, and the other.  “If all matter is constant, what can one add to creation?”, the narrator of “A Line Made While Walking” asks.  What are these lines that we draw between our past and present, God and ourselves, and even between one another — are they not just arbitrary demarcations.  Like in “Out-of-the-Body,” the narrator watches the river otter and wonders if the animal is at play or working and whether even such distinctions enter into his thoughts while he’s busily breaking up the ice.  And if the otter does not make these distinctions, why do we, especially when we lie awake at night.  If only we could watch ourselves from outside of ourselves, what would we see?

Pankey’s preoccupation with death and its ultimate push to think about faith in something greater than ourselves permeates each and every poem in the collection, though some more intensely than others.  “All of winter, like a suppressed yawn, wells up inside me” is just one line from “Cogitatio Mortis” or I think of death (a rough Latin-to-English translation).  Death is never far from us or our thoughts, especially in today’s media hyped up world in which news from across the globe reaches us in seconds and wars continue to break out across the world.

Edge of Things

I wait at the twilit edge of things,
A dry spell spilling over into drought,

The slippages of shadow silting in,
The interchange of dusk to duskier,
The half-dark turning half-again as dark.

There:  night enough to call it a good night.

I wait for the resurrection, but wake to morning:
Mist lifting off the river.
Ladders in the orchard trees although the picking's done.

There are moments of hope in the collection, as Pankey’s poems discuss the death of the body, but not the soul. In “The Place of Skulls,” the narrator talks about the millstones and the hauling down of the bodies, but that the tree continues living and bearing fruit. Whether this is a poem about reincarnation, the absorption of the soul into the tree, or the mere image of saplings that have grown up and bear their own fruit after the sire has passed on does not matter because there is hope that life never just stops.  Faith is at the edges of these poems and underneath them, but on the surface, there is death, loss, and memories of all that has passed, even if those memories are faded and carry different emotional context than they did in the moment of creating them.

Trace by Eric Pankey is a collection focused on faith and passing on and what one wishes to leave behind, compared to what is actually left behind.  It is about the struggle to continue to get up every day and face it head on, even if death is closer than ever.

About the Poet:

Eric Pankey is the author of nine collections of poetry. TRACE, published by Milkweed Editions this year is the most recent. Two new collections, DISMANTLING THE ANGEL, and CROW-WORK are forthcoming. He is the Heritage Chair in Writing at George Mason University.

He’ll be at the May Gaithersburg Book Festival for “Poetry in the Afternoon” moderated by me!

This is my 21st book for the Dive Into Poetry Challenge 2013.

This is my 32nd book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Book Source: HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours
Hardcover: 400 pgs
I am an Affiliate of Amazon.com

Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende is written in a notebook form without chapter breakdowns and is not a linear narrative.  Maya Vidal is a very troubled youth when tragedy strikes her very unconventional family of her pilot father who is rarely home, her grandparents Nidia and Popo, her absent mother Marta Otter, and the family friend Mike O’Kelly.  The novel is a departure from Allende’s typical historical fiction novels, but do not expect history to be absent from this coming-of-age novel — the takeover of Chile by Pinochet is present in the background, hanging over the Vidal family like a hazy cloud.  From her nose ring and tattoos to her goth clothes, Maya and her vampire friends set out on a path of self-destruction as a way to rebel against their family lives that they claim are very distasteful and harmful.  However, unlike Debbie and Sarah, Maya’s life is far from abusive and emotionally vacant, though it has changed significantly.

“I love some of the island’s customs, like truco, but there are others that bug me.  If a chucao, a tiny loudmouthed bird, chirps to the left of me, it’s bad luck, so I should take off a piece of clothing and put it back on inside out before going any farther; if I’m walking at night, I’m supposed to carry a clean knife and salt, because if I cross paths with a black dog with one ear lopped off, that’s a brujo, and in order to get away I have to trace a cross in the air with the knife and scatter salt.”  (Page 47 ARC)

Allende is a novelist that handles details with aplomb, weaving them in the disjointed narrative at just the right time, leading readers on an emotional journey that evokes not only frustration at Maya’s behavior, but also one of sympathy and sadness for the losses she feels.  She needs to hit rock bottom in order to climb up and rebuild her life, even though she falls off a high cliff into the abyss of drug dealers, mafia criminals, and the sex trade.  Allende does not sugarcoat anything that Maya experiences in her rehab stints or her escapes and drop off the map inside Las Vegas.  Unwittingly or willfully blind, Maya stumbles into a crime ring that is bigger than she ever thought it could be and it puts her life and the lives of her loved ones in danger as she never could have imagined. However, the end game with the conspiracy feels a bit contrived.

Maya’s past is never far behind, even as her life spirals out of control, chirping behind her ear at every turn.  Running is the only way she knows how to deal with her emotions, and its the way her family has dealt with the harsh struggles of their lives since the time of Pinochet. The ties that bind this family are stronger than ever, even as dynamics change between them and secrets of the past are uncovered. Love is the strongest tie, but fear also can be a great motivator as the walls close in. Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende is a modern marvel that will make a lasting impression on readers as a headstrong girl becomes unmoored and is forced to not only confront her own demons but the ghosts of the past.

About the Author:

Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of many bestselling novels, including, most recently, Island Beneath the Sea, Ines of My Soul, Zorro, Portrait in Sepia, and Daughter of Fortune. She has also written a collection of stories; three memoirs, The Sum of Our Days, My Invented Country, and Paula; and a trilogy of young adult novels. Her books have been translated into more than 27 languages and have become bestsellers across four continents. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Allende lives in California.  Find out more about Allende, her books, and her foundation at www.isabelallende.com, and connect with her on Facebook.

The Klipfish Code by Mary Casanova is a young adult novel set during World War II when Norway was occupied by the Nazis for five years.  Rather than acquiesce to all of the Nazis demands and become indoctrinated, many of them showed their solidarity in small ways, including wearing paperclips on their clothes and not speaking to those in the community who turned into Nazi informers.

Marit is a young girl of ten when the first bombs fall on Norway, which has become a pawn in the war as the Germans seek to control the ports and the British seek to do the same.  Her parents are eager to join the Resistance and help the British as best they can — her father’s knowledge of bridges and roads and her mother’s ability to speak English — but it forces them to break up the family and send their children to Godøy Island to live with their grandfather Bestefar and their aunt Ingeborg.  While Marit and her brother Lars have spent summers there, Marit does not get along well with her grandfather who she finds favors her brother.

“She couldn’t believe he was actually speaking to her.  She didn’t know if he wanted an answer or not, but she gathered her courage.  ‘But Bestefar, if no one fights back, the Germans will be here forever!’” (page 41)

Casanova’s story is based in fact, which can be found in the notes at the back of the book, and her characters are believable as young children caught in a war they do not understand.  Marit struggles with her morals as she’s forced by her peers to not speak to her friend Olaf in school because his parents turned in a Norwegian to the Nazis.  While Marit is brave at the beginning of the occupation, she falters as any young child would in the face of oppression and danger, and she must come to terms with her own convictions and if they are worth the price she and her family might pay.

Unlike other suspenseful young adult novels in which children are the main protagonists and the most important actors in the plot, Casanova has stuck to the real world dynamics of the world in which children do not know everything and are not the main actors.  Marit demonstrates fear as she strives to deliver the klipfish code and when she encounters the Germans up close.  The Klipfish Code by Mary Casanova is a realistic account of Norway’s struggles during the Nazi occupation without being too graphic about the violence that came with that regime.

About the Author:

Mary Casanova is an award-winning children’s author of novels and picture books. Many of her books stem from her life on the Minnesota-Canadian border; yet some of her stories have taken her as far away as France, Norway, and Belize for research. Whatever the setting for her books, Casanova writes stories that matter–and stories that kids can’t put down.

Her book awards include: American Library Association “Notable,” Aesop Accolades by the American Folklore Society, Parents’ Choice “Gold” Award, Booklist Editor Choice, and two Minnesota Book Awards. Her books frequently land on state children’s choice book master lists across the country. “The greatest reward for me,” Casanova states, “is when a young reader tells me she or he loves one of my books. For me, it’s all about communicating writer-to-reader through a character and story.”

This is my 31st book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.