Grey Goose

Reflecting

Father pops out in brilliant hues

    camping trip green

    roller-coaster red

    icy-pop blue

    punched through with angry black.

But Mother is a mess--

a finger-painting of routine,

bleeds colors from sole to grey,

the particular indiscernible from far away.

Grey--

tint of storm clouds

pregnant with sobbing,

chasing the sun with condolences,

mutilating the heavens with her bawl.

Grey--

chimes like silver,

sword on sword in a

defensive battlecry,

clashes of protection.

Grey--

skeleton scaffold of ladders

to drape a skin of want

without hazard of buckling.

Grey--

world at dusk;

a black and white movie

with birdsong as soundtrack;

blurred edges, softened scrutiny;

a rabbit's meuse;

white noise.

Grey--

becomes the background

so the colors can

pop.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters

Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a satisfying and hopeful conclusion to the Smoke and Bone series. Although it was a bit too long with too many introspective passages saying the same thing. She uses language that always has bordered on this side of too sentimental and precious, and in this book I felt it crossed the line. Perhaps it was a culmination of reading all 3 in a row, or perhaps it was just over the top in this one, but I rolled my eyes more than once. A stronger editorial hand could have saved it, because several passages were transcendent, but got lost amongst the verbal barrage. The plot was really quite well done, though again, I felt like the introspective passages outweighed some of the new mythology she introduced--I would have liked more details about that and less about the constant longing of Akiva and Karou. Still, this is hands down one of the better YA fantasy trilogies.

View all my reviews

Stone Mattress

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Probably a 3.5 star rating. These are nine tales, some really good, some seemed tired and overplayed. Almost all involve aging protagonists who are dealing with the consequences (sometimes physical, sometimes emotional) of choices made when they were younger. A bit of magical realism (whimsy?) is usually involved. "Stone Mattress" is one of the better tales, as is "The Freeze Dried Groom" and "Torch the Dusties" (although this last one bends credulity a bit). I wouldn't say it lives up to what I was expecting from the author of A Handmaids Tale , but perhaps that is unfair, and it was an interesting read nevertheless.

View all my reviews

In the Wolf's Mouth

In the Wolf's Mouth by Adam Foulds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There have to be as many angles about war, specifically WWII, as there are people who were involved. I have read A LOT of literature about concentration camps, occupation, relocation, and hiding of Jews during WWII, but not a lot about the soldiers themselves. This book follows two soldiers in Africa and Italy toward the end of WWII. What you realize is that even without the sadistic Nazis, barbed wire, or cruel depravations, war is brutal. It is a machine and the soldiers are cogs that must run to keep up with it, or be spit out the other side. Morals, justice, and friendships have no place here--only the apathetic bureaucracy and political alignments matter and the soldiers are simply the tools being used.

View all my reviews

Life was a skin; It could be peeled away like strips of wallpaper with its coherent pattern.  The soil wasn't that deep.  A shell gored it and there was a rock beneath.  Plants burned, uprooted.  It could all be scraped off easily.

That was what it was like in battle: Things happened very far away or lethally close.

Days of Blood and Starlight

 

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As the middle of the series, Blood and Starlight tends to be dark and hopeless, like most middle books. Things have to go from bad to worse to make the ending that much more suspenseful and triumphant (which I am assuming book #3 will do). Still, there are plenty of twists and surprises and this series has some of the best writing in YA Fantasy I have read.

View all my reviews

Citizen

 

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry and lyrical essays about how the little bits of throw-away racisim build up and magnify over time. "What did you say?" she asks repeatedly in the book. Perhaps the best descriptions of all those little misspoken, subtle prejudices that others dismiss as "joking", a "mistake", or "slip of the tongue" create a tension that those facing it must constantly battle against, and sometimes just can't take any more. This is a book that shows how art (poetry) can say the things that speechifying and lecturing can't.

View all my reviews

John Henryism--for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism.  They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure.

this other kind of anger is really a type of knowledge: the type that both clarifies and disappoints.  It responds to insult and attempted erasure simply by asserting presence

For all your previous understandings, suddenly incoherence feels violent.

For so long you thought the ambition of racist language was to denigrate and erase you as a person.  After considering Butler's remarks, you begin to understand yourself as rendered hypervisible in the face of such language.

Quotation Marks

A mirror of twins

mimicking the other

without empathy for the middle signals.

Doubled ears with tongue between.

Soldiers standing guard 

to fix the words in place

so, even unheard,

ciphers displace the atmosphere

like hurricanes dispatched from butterfly wings.

Ribs holding the breath of intention.