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Death on the Funeral Yacht
A 1950s San Francisco Mystery
Author: Mary Miller Chiao, Santa Clara County Branch
Reviewed by: Susan Zerweck, Santa Clara County Branch
Having spent much of her career working in a San Francisco law firm, Mary Miller Chiao knows the difficulty women faced in getting hired as a lawyer in the 1950s. The protagonist of her novella, “Death on the Funeral Yacht,” knows it too.
The main character, Jane Kitterage, struggles to start her legal career. After graduating from law school with honors and applying to many San Francisco law firms, Jane is never considered because she is a woman.
Despairing, she becomes a legal secretary for Lucas Law Firm, where the principal, Jay Lucas — J.L. — is a typical male chauvinist. With his flamboyant style and movie star looks, he is the darling of San Francisco society. He pays Jane well, and she handles most of his work, running the firm while retaining her secretarial status.
J.L. owns an apartment building on prestigious Nob Hill and drives a black Jaguar, while Jane rents a cheap apartment in the Italian district and rides the bus to work. He insists she dress well in his office and sends her to an upscale clothing store where designer outfits complete with hats, gloves, handbags, shoes, and jewelry, were all bought with J.L.’s account. Walking down Pacific Street toward the office, Jane looks like an attorney, but knows J.L. will never promote her and even go so far as to block opportunities with other firms.
The rich and beautiful Susannah De Luigi, who’s rich husband is elderly and failing, signs as a new client and invades both their lives. J.L. professes love for Susannah, but in truth lusts after her fortune, and he’s willing to pay any price. Eventually, the mean, self-centered womanizer reaps his just rewards, a gratifying event for the reader.
Chiao weaves in the beauty and attractions of San Francisco and the Bay Area so intricately, they serve as minor characters. She also writes a surprise ending that will amaze and satisfy the reader. “Death on the Funeral Yacht” is small but mighty, and enjoyable to read.
2020, $14.33
ISBN: 978-0578707181
The Freelancer’s Compass
Navigate Your Way from Corporate Cog to Solopreneur Star
Author: Rodika Tollefson, Member-at-Large
Cover art by: Lucy Arnold, Golden Gate-Marin Branch
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch
In a world seemingly dominated by AI business advice, Rodika Tollefson’s book is a breath of fresh air. For the record, a quick question posed to an AI bot yielded a one-page, high-level list of what to do. By contrast, “The Freelancer’s Compass” explains how to execute actions for the best results on the journey to freelance success.
The how covers basic advice on what is necessary now versus what is nice to have later, and where to concentrate initial efforts.
“As a freelancer, you’re not a cog,” Tollefson writes. “You’re the gear, pinion, axis, and whatever other doohickey it takes for the entire mechanism to function. And the gearhead who designs and makes it all work.”
That list alone — gear, pinion, axis, and gearhead who makes it all work — is intimidating, but this book breaks it down into practical, manageable steps to help the solopreneur remain focused.
Tollefson explores myths like having the freedom to do what you want, or to at least have a flexible schedule. (Accordingly, working at 3 a.m. is flexible.) She notes it’s imperative to: take yourself seriously or no one else will (think clients), remember that freelancing has the goal of any business — to make money — and learn not to take things personally (so you can make better business decisions).
The value of this book springs from voices of experience of Tollefson and other successful freelancers. Accessing tips from these experts feels almost like peeking behind the curtain, but it isn’t cheating. Ted Talks often urge people to question the most successful person in their field for advice. This book does that for the freelancer.
“The Freelancer’s Compass” can help the freelancer succeed. It reinforces a paradigm shift Tollefson shares early on: “You’re not a freelancer. You’re a business owner.”
Audacia Press, 2024, $12.95
ISBN: 979-8990804708
Altars of Wonder
Author: Andrea Jones Walker, Pensacola Branch
Reviewed by: Karen McAferty Morris, Pensacola Branch
The cover of “Altars of Wonder,” Andrea Jones Walker’s collection of poetry and lyrical essays, depicts a cairn, a stack of smooth pebbles. Cairns somehow seem to draw one near, to be observed and even added to, like an ever-changing memorial where paths have crossed. The pieces in Walker’s new volume — which received honorable mention in the Vinnie Ream letters competition — intrigue and satisfy in much the same way.
Whether Walker is observing kelp beds near Catalina Island, driving to watch the sun rise over a Florida bay, encountering bats and lizards on a walk at dusk, or sitting by her bedroom window contemplating seasonal winds, she is drawing from nature, learning about herself and the universe. Through her intelligent, fresh outlook, we, too, expand our appreciation as we read the lines or later, when something recalls them to us – which will happen, as her observations are timeless and memorable.
Walker’s volume explores human interactions as fully as those with nature. In the brief poem “Fences of Isolation,” she contrasts how, after a hurricane blew down privacy fences, “we spoke with neighbors we’d been separated from … and how, our fences rebuilt, during “Corona Days” we were isolated again in different circumstances.” In her essay, “Much More Than Breakfast,” Walker describes a small but momentous kindness bestowed by a stranger. And in the poem “Communion,” she recounts the simple yet sustaining gesture of a friend when Walker was undergoing chemo.
“Altars of Wonder” both grounds and uplifts. It’s simply not possible to read or reread one of its poems or essays without feeling more in tune with life and fortified by her wisdom and delight in each examined experience, set down here in finely turned phrases, among which her lovely photographs are embedded. It is rich with complex thought cast in clear and graceful language, with an undercurrent of humble gratitude for what the world offers us.
Independently published, 2023, $15
ISBN-13: 979-8367762945
Indelible Shadow
Author: Sandra Berris, Greenwich Branch
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch
According to the World Health Organization, the world’s mental health crisis results in more than 750,000 suicides a year, or one every 40 seconds. In October 2023, The New York Times reported that suicide among youth 10 to 24 years old in the United States jumped 54% from 2007 to 2020. As Sandra Berris illuminates in her poetry chapbook, “Indelible Shadow,” teen suicide casts a dark shroud on the lives of those left behind.
Berris takes the reader on an intimate journey into the aftermath of teen suicide through poems that are stark yet tender, brief yet intensely haunting.
In “If Only,” the poet speaks to a boy dead on the tracks, wishing if only he had been on the train to feel “its rocking / The hypnotic sway and swooshing / Sounds soothing your dread / Silencing dark thoughts / Bringing instead new dreams / Possibilities in an elusive future…”
Berris shifts to the survivors. “The Mother” captures the mother’s anguish as she “wails loud as a train … Searching for answers / Where there is no know.” In “The Father,” we witness as he “grills the girlfriend / Again and again / What did he say Tell me / You must know something … Tell me anything he said Tell me / As if she keeps a secret / As if anyone could know.”
The inability of a 4-year-old to understand the physical finality of death surfaces in “Little Sister.” After declaring her brother is dead, she asks, “Where is heaven / Can I go see him / My brother is dead / Will he be home for my birthday.”
In “Indelible Shadow,” Berris moves the reader through the tumultuous stages of grief to the infinite hope that Martin Luther King, Jr. urged people always to hold close.
This chapbook stands as a testament to the crisis of teen suicide. Berris has pledged all royalties from “Ineligible Shadow” to teen suicide prevention and mental health agencies.
Finishing Line Press, 2024, $17.99
ISBN: 979-8888385111
On the Loose in New Orleans
A Find-the-Animals Book
Author/illustrator: Sage Stossel, Wellesley Branch (MA)
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch (FL)
Oh, no! The animals have left the Audubon Park Zoo and are touring New Orleans! The zookeeper needs help and recruits the reader to help find the animals hidden in plain sight among iconic scenes of New Orleans.
“One morning the zookeeper / discovered a note: / ‘We’ve gone for a walk,’ / the animals wrote. ‘Oh dear,’ said the keeper. ‘What am I to do? / My critters have left me alone at the zoo!’”
And so begins “On the Loose in New Orleans,” the fifth Find-the-Animals adventure book from author, illustrator, and Pen Woman Sage Stossel. The books contain everything that makes an excellent children’s book. The first glance reveals delightful artwork of cultural scenes in major U.S. cities.
Two-page full-color drawings in the book showcase lions and tigers and bears, alligators and emus, and other animals intermingling with people along well-known places like Canal Street and its signature street cars, Café du Monde, Preservation Hall, the French Market, and riverboats along the Mississippi River.
A magnifying glass in the lower right-hand corner asks, “Can you find” just above the list of animals. Accompanying the artwork is the story in the genre of classic children’s poetry.
“A report came in next from the town’s famed café: / There are elephants here, eating up our beignets! / Meanwhile, out in the bayou, a sightseeing tour / was surprised by a lion, who just said, ‘Bonjour.’ / The scene got quite lively around Jackson Square / as a bevy of animals frolicked with flair.”
Stossel’s books have been well-received. Boston’s mayor selected the first book in the series, “On the Loose in Boston,” for a recommended youth city reading list, and Philadelphia Family Magazine named “On the Loose in Philadelphia” one of 10 books that should be on every Philly kid’s bookshelf. There is no reason the New Orleans edition should receive any less praise.
Arcadia Children’s Books, 2024, $17.99
ISBN: 9871467197168
In the Presence of the Moai
Poetry and Prose of Travel
Author: Lynn M. Hansen, Modesto Branch (CA)
Reviewed by: Nancy Haskett, Modesto Branch (CA)
Reading the poems and prose pieces in Lynn Hansen’s newest collection, “In the Presence of the Moai,” is like taking a trip around the world. A marine biologist for over 30 years, Hansen has had the pleasure and opportunity to visit all seven continents, almost always accompanied by her husband, who appears in several of the dozen color photos scattered throughout the book, all but one taken by the author herself.
Through Hansen’s keen observations, we ride with her on a camel in Egypt, hide in a tent while elephants stomp around our camp in Tanzania, watch sea turtles in Costa Rica, observe foxes on the Channel Islands, view petroglyphs in Renegade Canyon, enter a bat-filled cave in Belize, stand below one of the giant statues on Easter Island (the cover photo for the book), and much more. Hansen’s writings reveal her vast, scientific knowledge and love of learning new things, along with her ability to look for humor in challenging circumstances, like attempting to converse in another language or finding Giant Huntsman spiders on her hotel wall on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos.
Hansen has a deep respect for other cultures and fills her writings with the language of the people she has met, using terms like tsatsas (Buddhist cremation remains), huipiles (Guatemalan tunics), and luciérnagas (Costa Rican fireflies). She is both professor and literary artist, providing the scientific word for items in nature when appropriate (“tiny brine shrimp, Artemia”), but writing with colors and details that create a painting in our mind.
“In the Presence of the Moai” offers a global potpourri to readers. Enriched by her many travels, Hansen does a masterful job of sharing her experiences and insights, allowing us now to journey along with her.
Pen Women Press, 2024, $14.99
ISBN: 978-1950251155
How She Did It
The Creativity of Georgeanna Lipe
Author: Patricia Daly-Lipe, Jacksonville Branch
Reviewed by: Stephanie Pyren-Fortel, Jacksonville Branch
In the words of Georgeanna Lipe, “The exuberance of facing a stark white canvas or beautifully hand-crafted watercolor sheets is pure joy.”
As artists, we usually start with a preconceived idea that often morphs into something totally unexpected. Voila! A mixture of energetic movements of colors and shapes emerges. As Lipe wrote, studying color theory and illustration had given her the technological tools she needed, but, as she points out, it is the inner voice that is in charge. Her quotes perfectly explain her relationship to the piece being created. An artist never paints “things.” The artist paints relationships, chooses a center of interest, and considers colors and their values.
In “How She Did It,” Patricia Daly-Lipe dives into Georgeanna Lipe’s life through the writings and artwork she left behind. Lipe was born in Nashville in 1909 to a prominent family. At 22, she graduated from college and worked for a year as a medical illustrator at Vanderbilt University. She wrote, “I had two months’ vacation and had saved a little money, which was burning a hole in my pocket.” Having traveled very little, she longed to explore other parts of the world. So, one summer, Lipe chose to take an art course at the University of California, Los Angeles. But she traveled there via the Panama Canal. Quite adventurous for a single young lady to travel at that time!
Lipe’s venturesome soul is one that most artists only dream of. Her paintings and sketches are crisp, colorful, and alive, expressing the timeless beauty of her trips and the people she met. Her story is an inspiration to artists who want to experience life through their work. DalyLipe’s “How She Did It” is the story of an amazing and incredible artist with a brilliant repertoire of paintings.
Dorrance Publishing Co., 2023, $49
ISBN: 979-8-88729-380-6
Searching Shadows, Finding Shade
Author: Linda Marie Prather, Modesto Branch
Reviewed by: Calder Lowe, Modesto Branch
In “Dry Creek, Summer Song,” (2016, Pen Women Press), Linda Prather’s poetry focuses on observing the smallest creatures animating our landscape that made our own mundane lives extraordinary. In her latest book, “Searching Shadows, Finding Shade,” Prather mystically fixes her poetic vision on the numinous in the hidden realms of family loss set against the backdrop of the Southwestern desert.
Whether we embrace Prather’s particularity exhibited in “Beginning the Trip” while describing “grounded stars / scattered across the desert,” or are drawn to her speculation that her dying 99-year-old mother will be “released from the heavy gravitational pull,” we are enveloped by a quiet assuredness.
Perhaps most evocatively, in “Photo Shoot,” Prather shares an instance where she finds both her camera lens and inner lens examining interlocking tree limbs and the challenging route an insect takes, only to happen delightedly across “an open door, … an entry, / remembering something waits within the invitation …” We are encouraged to accept “the invitation” the poet extends. Along these same lines of embracing the holy, “Set Free,” the final selection, references “a still small voice, / the fire, and the cloud,” the desert where the author is “tested, proved, humbled,” and the “tiny sprigs of green,” that point to a resurrection of the spirit.
Overall, I believe what I find most compelling about Prather’s work is the level of her comfort in interaction with the Divine. “Well Lord I’m up before the others, sitting in the sun under the Ponderosa Pine,” she interjects in “Placing Stones.” Such a companionable tone encourages the reader’s heart to engage in daily, ongoing dialogues with the Creator.
Prather’s latest collection provides an irrepressible summons to live in gratitude, awe, and humility as we stalwartly navigate periods of despair and bereavement in our lives.
Linda Marie Prather, $18
ISBN: 978-0-578-26528-5
Wild Florida
An Animal Odyssey
Author: Kirsten Hines, Member-at-Large
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch
In “Wild Florida: An Animal Odyssey,” Kirsten Hines gives readers the best of her expertise in several subjects — biology, conservation, writing, and photography as it relates to Florida’s native animal species. This is a book oozing with Hines’ curiosity, respect, and passion for nature and natural beauty.
Her photography peels back the shiny veil of a Florida filled with beachfront high-rises, theme parks, shopping centers, and highly trafficked expressways to expose a world of creatures great and small. “Wild Florida” is more than 300 pages long and delivers precisely what prominent wildlife expert Ron Magill says in his Forward: “a feast of the eyes and mind.”
From marine creatures, four-legged woodland animals, and birds, to tiny insects, the photographs depict a natural reality that is essential to Florida being Florida. There are manatees, dolphins, sea turtles, birds like the red-winged hawk, black vultures, Florida grasshopper sparrow, and bonneted bat. And don’t overlook the red wolf, red fox, or Key deer.
“Native” is a complex term, Hines explains. For example, of the many birds considered native to Florida, like cranes, flamingos, osprey, and owls, among others, only the scrub jay is an endemic bird species. The term “native” is meant to “distinguish nature’s blueprint unimpeded by human meddling.” In other words, species that came to inhabit Florida on their own, whether millions of years or mere decades ago, are native animals like coyotes, cattle egrets, and cave swallows.
This is science at its best in language any reader can understand. The Miami tiger beetle is so small, it wasn’t discovered until the 1930s and then thought extinct until 2007. Hines describes the menacing “larvae of the Miami tiger beetle, so small that its head measures no more than the ‘We’ of the ‘In God We Trust’ embossed on a penny.” She also includes a list of accessible ways to help wildlife.
“Wild Florida” is a master class in biology, nature, environment, and Florida’s ever-evolving fauna.
University Press of Florida, 2023, $42
ISBN: 978-0-8130-6981-4
Turkey Creek Preserve
A Sacred Journey
Authors: Connie Kostel Spittler and Mary Maccietto Bernier, Omaha Branch
Reviewed by: Margie Lukas, Omaha Branch
A coffee-table book with large, full-color photos on every page, “Turkey Creek Preserve: A Sacred Journey” is a beautiful exploration into nature most of us never see. Connie Spittler and Mary Bernier spent more than four years working with Nebraska photographers, nature professionals, and a Native American consultant to construct a cohesive collection of images, scientific information, inspirational nature quotes, and creation stories.
Set in eastern Nebraska, the preserve is situated on the rolling terrain of the Loess Hills and includes lakes, marshes, wetlands, and creeks. It began in 1996 when Turkey Creek Preserve’s founder, scientist, and nature lover Mary Lou Chapek purchased 12 acres of land and gradually extended it to more than 900 acres. Chapek refers to herself as a land steward rather than a property owner. So complete and varied are the pictures and text that even Iktomi, the Lakota name for the spider — often seen as a trickster — is recognized. The full-color pictures of birds range from the great blue heron to the “living prismatic gem,” the hummingbird. Mammals from deer to coyotes, from foxes to bobcats appear on the pages.
Because the preserve is important as a habitat sanctuary as well as for research, no road signs direct seekers to this well-hidden space. It is only available for university-level education and research or with special permission. Thankfully, we can experience the preserve through the book. Turning the pages, photograph by photograph, I feel myself moving through the preserve, from space to deeper space, on a spiritual journey exactly as the book intended.
In closing, a quote from the book: “Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.” –Albert Schweitzer
Little Woman Press, 2022, $34.50 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-0880-3768-3
Lulu.com, 2023, $51 (hardcover)
The Crystal Beads
Lalka’s Journey
Author: Patricia Black-Gould, Pensacola Branch
Illustrated by: Katya Royz
Reviewed by: Claire Massey, Pensacola Branch
Though primarily classified as children’s literature, this beautifully crafted book compels readers of all ages to ponder our deepest moral values. While nurturing empathy and compassion in young readers for the plight of Jewish children and their parents during the Nazi terrors, it reminds adults that we must renew our commitment to fighting oppression, prejudice, and human rights violations whenever and wherever they occur.
This is an important and timely story for all generations to read and read again. We follow young Lalka on the eve of war in Eastern Europe as she is delivered into the care of Catholic nuns and challenged to understand why her mother must abandon her to the kindly sisters who risk all to protect her. This is a tale of sacrifice, endurance, and survival, in which a wise mother’s love looms large — so strong, the forces of evil cannot diminish it.
In “The Crystal Beads,” author Patricia Black-Gould and Illustrator Katya Royz deftly combine text and artwork to multiply the power of the book’s message exponentially. The story is skillfully told with tenderness and great sensitivity.
Parents, teachers, and educators will appreciate that the book has been recognized for excellence, including a gold medal from the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards.
The appendix includes thoughtful questions to guide discussion for children and adults. The author also includes her article on the paperclip project, which Tennessee educators designed to teach students about the Holocaust. This project shows the positive results that educators and authors inspire when they tackle difficult subjects with confidence in young learners’ capacity for caring and understanding.
“The Crystal Beads” reminds us that we must never forget history and be ever vigilant, lest this dark era of persecution repeats itself.
2022, Purple Butterfly Press
$18.99 hardcover, $10.95 paperback
ISBN: 978-1-955119-21-4
Her Billionaire Cowboy’s Twin Heirs
Christmas in Fair Creek
Author: Cathy Shouse, Member-at-Large
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch
It’s two days before Christmas, and Annie York, a single mom in a small town, has pies to deliver, a birthday party that afternoon for her 8-year old daughter, and no time for life’s frills. So, when Bentley, a large and rambunctious dog, trips her on the sidewalk and pies fly out of her hands, she does her best to resist the immediate and growing attraction to the dog’s owner.
As life would have it, Bentley belongs to Caleb Galloway, the skinny, upper-class computer geek from high school who moved to California and grew into the epitome of success and handsomeness. In Annie’s mind, Caleb “defines hunk.” But they’re both far enough from high school days to have wounded hearts and solid skepticism about romance.
When Caleb is unexpectedly awarded custody of his sister’s twins, Annie steps in as his pillar of support, and he responds in kind with quick-thinking maneuvers to ensure the birthday party is an outstanding success.
In “Her Billionaire Cowboy’s Twin Heirs,” Cathy Shouse gives us believable characters who connect with the readers and melt their hearts. Her writing hits all the beats at a fast pace — and by the end of the novella, the reader is not only sure the romance is set in stone but also is ready for more. The author doesn’t disappoint.
The novella, published in March 2022, is an introduction to the storyline for the “Her Billionaire Cowboy’s” series of inspirational romance novels about the four brothers of Galloway Farms. “Second Chance” was published in October 2022, followed by “Triplets” in March 2023, and soon to be joined by “Best Friend” in November 2023.
Shouse’s writing is a great example of why romance is a $1.4 billion industry. (Romance is hands-down the highest earning fiction genre.) “Twin Heirs” is a good choice for someone looking for an uplifting escape from the chaos of today’s world.
2022, Cathy Shouse, $3.99
ISBN: 979-844056918
Seventy-Five
Connectivity through the Ages
Author: Lori Joseph, Member-at-Large
Photographer: Terry Wild
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch
“Seventy-Five” intertwines three creative pursuits — poetry, prose, and photography — to examine life and deeper meanings that too often go unnoticed. Pen Woman Lori Joseph, who has a solid list of publication credits, joined with Terry Wild, who has a half-century of experience as a photographer, to create a book that is poignant, visually appealing, and insightful.
Both the photographs and the verse peel back the layers of unnoticed moments and offer unexpected perspectives. For example, a photo of a casserole topped with asparagus stalks reveals memories that connect past and present. “I see a forest. / A savory offering takes me from this moment / to a garden from the past / where I stood barefoot on the damp earth, saturated with the scent of fresh herbs. / How lucky am I to know the subtle shifts / of the garden’s fragrance as the day stretches on. / And now, before me as I’m about to partake, / I give thanks for my roots.”
What inspiration could a stack of blue construction pipes against a blue sky hold? In “Pipe Dreams,” Joseph writes, “These pipes may not be your dream / but somewhere, someone’s dream / is coming to fruition. / Soon they’ll be buried / with the flow. / Nonexistent.”
A close-up of a computer’s motherboard accompanies “Emotional Void” contained in a brief but complete observation: “A reminder, a record / countless lives are hard-driven.”
This book relates to readers on many levels. On the surface, it’s a pleasant book of verse and photographs. On a deeper level, the words touch vacancies deep within, echoing the lines, tones, and imagery on the pages. The Maryland State Arts Council awarded Joseph a grant to develop a program based on the book. Her goal is to create an interactive experience for community centers and nursing homes, a perfect expression of the book’s subtitle, “Connectivity through the Ages.”
2022, J2B Publishing, $20
ISBN: 978-1-954682-37-5
Tennis Talk of a Nobody
Author: Gail Wilson Kenna, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Reviewed by: Ilona Duncan, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Gail Wilson Kenna’s “Tennis Talk of a Nobody” is an insightful account of the author’s lifelong passion for tennis. I don’t play tennis and loved this memoir.
Kenna began playing competitive tennis at 10. Now in her 80s, she remains an active, committed player who teaches literature and writes books. “Warm-up” begins with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, followed by three sets of compelling narratives, old photos, and newspaper clippings. Kenna uses the game of tennis to reveal mysteries of chance and circumstance. Like the strings of a tennis racquet, connections and synchronicity have woven her life’s path. Cut the strings — and everything changes.
What were the chances Kenna would play poker with Arthur Ashe in 1964, a game of chance? Or that both Ashe and her father, Robert T. Wilson, would undergo heart surgery, receive HIV-infected blood, and die from it? What were the chances in 1960 that Kenna would take her first-ever fall on the court and break five bones in her left foot at the National Hardcourt Championships? Billie Jean Moffit watched in the stands that day, and Kenna’s book includes a letter to the now famous BJ King, who was once a tennis foe.
From California, life led Kenna to Texas, Alabama, Washington, D.C., around the world, and back to America. Now living in Virginia with her husband, Mike, she remains devoted to tennis.
My favorite narrative was “Tennis Is Why You Exist, Dear Daughters,” in “Set One” of the book’s three. It begins in the summer of 1967 with Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher arriving in a black limo at the camp where Gail met Mike, the camp rifle instructor.
At NLAPW’s 2022 Biennial, Kenna won nine awards for her writing. This college teacher’s life is full of mysterious tennis-related connections that inspire readers to keep swinging at life.
2023, Gail Wilson Kenna, $16
ISBN: 978-1-7341602-5-3
Mind Over Bladder
A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Continence
Jill Maura Rabin, M.D., Long Island Branch; Gail Stein, with Danielle O’Shaughnessy, M.D.
Reviewed by: Melody Bussey, Jacksonville Branch
Urinary incontinence is a common problem that affects millions of women worldwide. It can be caused by a variety of factors, including childbirth, menopause, and obesity. Despite there being many treatments available, many women are hesitant to seek help. Incontinence is not an easy subject to raise and discuss. This book by Pen Woman Jill Rabin and co-authors Gail Stein and Danielle O’Shaughnessy offers discreet answers to questions and meaningful insight. “Mind Over Bladder” is a comprehensive guide to urinary incontinence that provides women with real information they need to take control of their bladder and regain their confidence.
The detailed, but easy-to-understand overview of the bladder and pelvic floor muscles was a breath of fresh air. The book helps create a better understanding of what can go awry and why incontinence happens. An exhaustive list of treatment options is given, including lifestyle changes, medications, and considerations for surgery.
Dr. Rabin also addresses the emotional and psychological aspects of incontinence and offers practical advice on how to cope with the condition. The personal stories from women who have struggled with it help put a human face on the issue.
I highly recommend “Mind Over Bladder” to any woman or loved one who is affected by urinary incontinence. It’s a comprehensive, witty, and informative guide that will provide you with the information you need to take control of your bladder and regain your confidence.
While written in an authoritative tone, the book pauses from time to time to create gentle humor. For example, some of the chapters are titled “It’s in the Rear Dear,” “Giggle Incontinence,” and “Oh, No, Can’t Go.” “Mind Over Bladder” offers practical advice on how to cope with urinary incontinence, how to manage symptoms, how to choose the right treatment, and how to live a full and active life despite incontinence.
2021, Morgan James Publishing, $17.95
ISBN: 163195010X
Nemesis of the Great
Author: Cinzi Lavin, Member-at-Large
Reviewed by: Lorraine Walker Williams, Member-at-Large
Cinzi Lavin’s “Nemesis of the Great,” a sequel to her novella “The Taciturn Sky,” addresses the challenges that move and change family and personal relationships. This book deals with transformation through character-driven dialog. Bryce Parnell, in his quest to navigate his ever-changing world, begins a spiritual journey that includes dialogue with a priest and a Native American retreat. Initially, religious beliefs are questioned when Bryce becomes the godparent of his sister’s baby.
However, life always intervenes when least expected and this creates a surprise for the reader as Bryce interacts with family and close friends and reflects on his role in society. The narrative contains much commentary on class and the elite. The rich are different, but they face the same human challenges in the end. Many aspects of contemporary American culture form a strong storyline throughout the book.
Gabe, a wealthy new acquaintance, provides insight into Bryce’s transformation. When Bryce wonders if he should even bother starting his own nonprofit, Gabe quotes John Kenneth Galbraith: “The powerful fear radicals more than anything else … Their greatest danger is accepting their own myth. Exposure to reality remains the nemesis of the great.”
Responding to Bryce’s question, “Do you think people like us will survive?” Gabe responds, “I don’t think Old Money will ever really vanish; it’ll just change form.”
Lavin introduces humor as Bryce reacts to situations, especially to his friend’s fiancé, Tiffany, who is from a lower-class background and is learning her own role in the moneyed aristocracy. There is a tenderness in Tiffany that is beautifully human and Lavin deftly uses language to transform her without sacrificing who she is.
Lavin handles grief and loss with caring detail, making “Nemesis of the Great” an engaging read. At 123 pages, it can be read quickly. I stretched it to three days since I was enjoying the unfolding of events. As a fellow Pen Woman, I recommend that you put it on your reading list.
2021, Cinzi Lavin, $3.53
ISBN: 978-1-7366350-1-8
Black History
Tina and Gina Discover Twelve People of Color
Author: Barbara J. Freeman, Omaha Branch
Illustrated by Ruth Araceli Rodrigue
Reviewed by: Melody Bussey, Jacksonville Branch
“Black History, Tina and Gina Discover Twelve People of Color” by Barbara J. Freeman is a beautifully illustrated children’s book that introduces young readers to 12 important people of color from history. The book follows two young cousins, Tina and Gina, as they visit the library and explore the Black History section. The stories of the people they meet, from Harriet Tubman to Jackie Robinson, fascinate them and the readers of this book as well.
The book is well-written and engaging, and the illustrations are stunning. Freeman does an excellent job of bringing these historical figures to life, and she does so in a way that is both informative and entertaining. The book is a great way to start a conversation with young children about race and diversity.
One thing that makes “Tina and Gina Discover Twelve People of Color” so special is that it features a diverse cast of characters. The book includes people from all walks of life, from artists and athletes to scientists and activists. This helps show young readers that people of color have made significant contributions to all areas of society.
Freeman does a great job of telling the stories of these historical figures in a way that is both interesting and accessible to young readers. The book is full of interesting facts and details, but it never feels like a history lesson. The illustrations are colorful and detailed, and they help to bring the stories to life.
Overall, “Tina and Gina Discover Twelve People of Color” is a wonderful book that I highly recommend. It’s a great way to teach young children about important people of color from history, and is sure to inspire them to learn more.
2021, Laredo Publishing Company, $19.95
ISBN: 1564925137
Fish Tale … and other stories with a HOOK!
Author: Virginia Nygard, Vero Beach Branch
Reviewed by: Dorothy Kamm, Vero Beach Branch
Virginia Nygard is a master storyteller and an awardwinning writer and poet. Her book, “Fish Tale … and other stories with a HOOK!,” is her newest collection of short stories.
One can see why Nygard has won numerous awards. Her use of figurative language paints vivid pictures. “Lucky” opens with the image, “The sky purpled like a nasty bruise shot through with streaks of yellow bile.”
And the beginning of “The Truth Shall Set You Free” fixes the tone for a story about a dying man and a long-kept secret: “Outside Dad’s hospital window, oaks and maples in early October finery awaiting passing into winter’s deadly grip.”
While the storylines vary, what the stories have in common is a hook. The characters are regular folk of various backgrounds. But the way the characters handle their challenges creates the hook. That is, some react in surprising ways, with spur-of-the-moment decisions based on emotion and opportunity that will affect the rest of their lives.
For example, in the story “Love From A To Z,” teenaged, acne-faced nerd Jerome Kresswood can’t get a date. During his college years, with his appearance and his confidence improved, he begins dating women in alphabetical order. Working his way to the end of the alphabet, Jerome finally falls in love with Ziva and proposes, only to have the tables turned. Ziva, who also had been a teenage misfit, rejects him because she, too, has decided to date men by working her way down the alphabet: “You’re only J. I have to move on sooner or later.” Jerry, “rejected like the women he used on his compulsive quest,” reacts, and in anger, murders Ziva. The story’s twist occurs when he is in prison.
Each story builds excitement, leading you forward to discover the hooks.
2022, Scatteredfrost Publishing, $8.95
ISBN: 9798812969509
Significance
Poems of Small Encounters
Author: Karen McAferty Morris, Pensacola Branch
Reviewed by: Claire Massey, Pensacola Branch
In “Significance: Poems of Small Encounters,” Karen Morris states the poet’s hope “that the reader will find pleasure, enlightenment, and comfort” from this, her third collection of poetry. Every poem in this award-winning, exquisitely crafted book proves her hope realized.
The ability to evoke haunting, authentic images using wondrously creative, original phrasing is the hallmark of Morris’ work. In “Sweetness of the Lavender,” rivers flow “with snow-chilled vigor,” lavender stalks “flutter like a geisha’s fan,” and “pine-infantried mountains” line a traveler’s landscape. The conflicted, approach-avoidance emotions that arise when we are confronted by human suffering and society’s collective failure to intervene are unflinchingly explored in “Burned Down” and “At the Thrift Store.”
In “Arpeggio,” Morris celebrates the pilgrim soul, reminding us to glean all we can from our wanderings before life’s holidays pass, and time, change, and loss erode mobility.
Her acute attention to nature and the panorama of changing seasons results in the lush description we enjoy in “Oak Fall: A Haibun,”* “On the Sidewalk to Everywhere,” “Forsythia,” and in haiku-framed visions of early spring. The ekphrastic poem “The Loneliness of Spring” delivers a brilliant, unexpected twist via its portrayal of spring as a tired and forlorn young woman, burdened by heavy expectations and winter’s inevitable obliteration of her hard work.
Morris is a master, not only of free verse and prose poetry, but of formal and challenging poetic forms. She is a talent of great significance, and these poems of life’s most powerful encounters are not to be missed.
*A haibun is a literary form that combines prose and haiku; it originated in seventeenth century Japan.
2022, Karen McAferty Morris, Pen Women Press, $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-950251-11-7
Driver Side Window
Poems and Prose
Author: Claire A. Massey, Pensacola Branch
Reviewed by: Lori Zavada, Pensacola Branch
Claire Massey’s prose and poetry invite readers to share intimate space with her as a common experience or spinoff into newfound considerations about life around us.
My favorite story in this book is “In a Wayward Garden” because of its honesty. A wife struggles to appear indifferent to her husband’s meandering into unwelcome territory by reflecting on an ex-lover. The story pricks a pain point, revealing what many mature relationships look like. The wife fights back her sensitivities with grace, and the reader gets to experience the omniscient stance of this wise wife. The story is raw and believable, revealing strength that only a steel magnolia can muster.
The author also skillfully takes us on a walk of humility. For instance, in “Cigarettes and Scratch-offs,” two people are in the same place physically, but categorically couldn’t be farther apart. These characters are written in perfect detail, and when juxtaposed, represent comfort and desperation. Do you know these characters? Are you one of them? Should we judge? Should we help? Or, are we just different people who pass one another in the world without effect? The poem forces us to feel a little uncomfortable, maybe even guilty, while exploring the truth about human connection.
“Driver Side Window” takes us to lows and highs and toward a stronger sense of self, reminding us that we are responsible for relationships, emotions, and natural resources. Surrounded by the collective experiences of people, plants, and animals, this piece reminds us that we can’t have light without dark, soft without hard, quiet without loud.
Those who read this book will want to listen more than they speak; help more than they hurt; consider every interaction with care, compassion, and empathy. “Driver Side Window” nudges us to think and aspire to leave things better than we found them.
2022, Claire A. Massey, $11.95
ISBN: 9798846316065
He Looks Like Me
Author: Lawanda Denise Warthen, Washington, D.C., Branch
Illustrated by: Taillefer Long
Reviewed by: Sally Wahl Constain, Jacksonville Branch
In “He Looks Like Me,” Lawanda Denise Warthen presents a storybook that reminds readers of the importance of role models who connect with and inspire children. This children’s picture book would be an important addition to a school or public library. It’s an attractive volume and would make a nice gift as well.
The book reaches out to children of color, focusing on a very special historical figure. In addition, the values it espouses can apply to any girl or boy regardless of race or ethnicity.
Warthen’s story is about real people. The main character is Sonja, who, as a child, identified with distinguished military hero Lloyd Austin III, a four-star general who rose to become the first African American secretary of defense. Sonja wants to learn more about this man because she resembles him. Then she proceeds to recognize and enumerate the general’s admirable attributes.
The author intersperses these ideals with wonderful illustrations, and she gives advice for the life goals that would benefit any youngster. Sonja recommends aiming high, staying active in mind and body, working hard, working together, keeping an open mind, and serving your community, just as General Austin did in his own life.
“He Looks Like Me” would be great as a read-aloud and could stimulate conversations with the child or children hearing the story. The author gives background information for the adult reader to share at the child’s level.
This is a very thoughtful book. It’s informative and encouraging, and emphasizes the importance of positive role models, especially now that there is so much negativity in everyday news.
2021, Illuminated Series, $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-7366170-1-4
Twenty-Four Months That Changed the World and Us
Author: Sharon Canfield Dorsey, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Reviewed by: Peggy Newcomb, Chesapeake Bay Branch
In “Twenty-Four Months That Changed the World and Us,” Sharon Canfield Dorsey has written a moving book about our collective journey from 2020 to 2022 — through the deaths and confinement of the COVID-19 pandemic, presidential elections, the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Through poetry and vignettes, she also calls our attention to global warming and the influence it has on all of us, from the fires in the American West, to the intentional burning of the rainforest in Brazil, to the increasing instability of our climates. Will money, big business, and greed continue to drown out the warnings of scientists?
Sprinkled in between these global musings are heartwarming stories of individual triumphs of the athletes who competed in the postponed Olympics, and renewed reminders of the importance of family and friendships. Dorsey’s book sheds light on the value of appreciating our differences and using them to make us a stronger instead of a more divided nation.
Sharon Canfield Dorsey is a gifted writer, with the ability to pack into a few words everything from the hunt for toilet paper to the trauma of COVID killing over a million Americans. She uses nostalgia, not to feed sadness, but to overcome it. She shows us ways we can move positively into this new normal, toward the future. This book will make you laugh, relate, think, and remember that each day is a new opportunity, filled with promise. She reminds us of who we are, what we have, and how blessed we continue to be.
This is a book you will want to share with family and friends.
2022, High Tide Publications, $7.99
ISBN: 1945990562
A Breast Cancer Guide for Spouses, Partners, Friends, and Family
Using Psychology to Support Those We Care About
Authors: Luanna H. Meyer, Honolulu Branch; Stephen N. Haynes; and Ian M. Evans
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch
It isn’t often I read a book and think it’s one that should be in every home, library, doctor’s office, women’s clinic, and bookstore, and left on benches and cafes where women gather. But this one, “A Breast Cancer Guide for Spouses, Partners, Friends, and Family: Using Psychology to Support Those We Care About” by Pen Woman Luanna H. Meyer (Honolulu Branch) and psychologists Stephen N. Haynes and Ian M. Evans — this one is exactly that.
Whether she’s you, your mother, wife, sister, daughter, cousin, aunt, grandmother, friend, or the young 35-year-old woman two pews ahead of you in church, someone you know has heard the dreaded diagnosis of breast cancer. And you’re left with the question banging around your head and gripping your heart: What can I do?
Herein lies the answer. This writing team brought together their personal experiences with loved ones diagnosed with breast cancer to present a compassionate guide that empowers others to give help and support. And Meyer, who has three close women relatives as well as friends and colleagues diagnosed with the disease, has herself received a personal diagnosis of an aggressive form of breast cancer.
The book is designed to help you focus on what your loved one needs most. The authors discuss active listening. No judgment, argument, or criticism. Just a journey to understanding.
This book examines every step of the journey — diagnosis, tests, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, reconstruction, children, metastatic breast cancer, end-of-life care, and taking care of yourself so you can continue to provide the care your loved one needs. It’s a lifeline in every sense of the word.
2022, Routledge, $23.95
ISBN: 978-1-032-04649-5
Blooms in Life’s Last Stretch
Author: : Liliana Luppi Dossola, La Jolla Branch
Reviewed by: Patricia Daly-Lipe, Jacksonville Branch
“Blooms in Life’s Last Stretch” by Liliana Luppi Dossola is a bilingual, poetic window into life from all aspects. For Dossola, poetry is a “very personal literary form.”
This is her introductory poem: “For simple things seem to have grown in importance/ Open to the beauty around,/ There will always be quiet moments to savor;/ Blooms to discover in the last stretch of life’s road.”
Dossola’s diverse background combines Argentinian birth, European heritage, and American adulthood, and influences her vision of the world expressed through poetry and art. In “Blooms in Life’s Last Stretch,” we join the author, watching out the door from the window and exploring life with her. The poet takes us down the paths of experience and observation. Time goes by, but memories linger. Dossola tells us to possess, relish, and share these moments — just as she does in poetic verse.
“In the entrails of the night/ The poet sweats his somnolence and languor./ The boundary between his reality and subconscious/ Seems to become blurred,/ While he strings together, as if with moon strands,/ The cadence of his songs.” (from Part 3, “Reflections on Life’s Last Stretch”)
From “Slices of Life” to “Worldwide Covid-19 Pandemic” and “Reflections on Life’s Last Stretch,” Liliana Dossola guides the reader to appreciation, hope, and insight for whatever life has to offer. It’s the journey, not the destination that counts. Reading this book is a journey we should all take. She includes a Spanish translation for every poem.
Poems and art reflect this talented lady’s dual reflection on life. From words to visual images, her work grants us an appreciation for the beauty in life as well as purpose and hope.
2022, Liliana Luppi Dossola, $12
ISBN: 978-1957837574
Shadows & Reflections
Author: Nancy Chisholm Haskett, Modesto Branch
Reviewed by: Linda Scheller, Modesto Branch
In “Shadows & Reflections,” Nancy Chisholm Haskett gives readers a clear, bright window into her life and thoughts. Haskett is a poet with keen powers of observation responsive to sensory suggestion.
Her imagery evokes sights, sounds, textures, and scents, as evidenced in these lines from “Sunriver”(54) recalling a childhood home: “the smoothness of the wooden banister and windowsills,/ how the hummingbirds hover at the feeder’s sultry sweetness/ above the patio bench,/ and the way snow blankets the redwood deck,/ weighing down nearby pines and junipers heavy white.”
Her poems are replete with imagery and ideas inspired by her many travels. Haskett’s carefully crafted verse renders historical context, contemporary issues, and people astutely perceived and described. Pointed inquiry and speculative musings imbue much of Haskett’s poetry of place with a contemplative tone, but just as often a leavening of wry humor lightens the mood of both poem and reader. The first stanza of “Journey” (146) of the book’s culminating poem reads: “Her fortune read,/ ‘You will travel to many exotic places,’/ so she left the restaurant,/ got into her car/ and drove until she was sleepy,/ stopping at the Motel 6 in Redding/ which wasn’t very exotic,/ but it wasn’t home.”
In quite a few of her poems, Haskett contemplates injustice in a calm, strong voice of conscience that is sometimes chiding, sometimes mournful, and often wistful. Some poems address the horrors of the Holocaust. Other poems consider racism, the cruelty of apathy, and terrorist tragedies inflicted on the innocent.
“Shadows & Reflections” is a generous collection, with epistolary poems addressed to National Public Radio and the Notre Dame Cathedral, an ekphrastic poem responding to Bruegel’s painting “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,” and a “Golden Shovel” poem with the last word of each line creating the vertical statement, “An Ode to Ice Cream.” Readers will be moved, transported, intrigued, amused, and gratified by Haskett’s clear, distinct view of the mysteries, absurdities, and intricacies of life.
2022, IF Books, $12.99
ISBN: 9798985 155839
Wind & Children
Author: Linda Scheller, Modesto Branch
Cover artist: Henrietta Sparkman, Modesto Branch
Reviewed by: Lynn M. Hansen, Modesto Branch
In her second collection of poems, Linda Scheller portrays a stark view of regional beauty and the social injustice experienced by California’s Central Valley farm workers and their children. She navigates through loss, indifference, and the resilience of nature as a backdrop for the tragedy and poignancy of working with disadvantaged children. It is a calling.
The cover for “Wind & Children” is Pen Woman Henrietta Sparkman’s monotype titled “Convected” that reflects the multiple directions of energy as it moves through lives. The poems are divided into two sections, each with epigraphs from “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley where she becomes the lyre through which the wind of children’s stories will scatter to humankind.
In Section I, “Angels of rain and lightning,” the stage is set with “Olivero Road,” a low-income housing area where her students arrive at school carrying “excited stories of guns and pregnancy/ funerals and jail” and live in “peach crate houses/ crammed together/ in narrow decrepit streets.” With imagery as rough as the area, she portrays the sunset here as “a raw throat/ screaming.” In “This is How,” an immigrant woman wearing a hijab has a drink dumped over her head at a local diner. “I watched and did nothing, I walked by her and said nothing,” noting when one student wonders how the Holocaust could have happened, “This is how.”
In Section II, “Oh Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind,” Scheller pivots, bringing the natural world into view where “Into the light/ we project our hopes.” For her, “The floods have left me/ alone for now, and anything/ I plant grows madly/ waving new branches.” At the end of her career, in “Look Back and Wonder,” she reflects on her teaching as “their future my cause, their hunger/ folded around metal desks.”
Throughout “Wind & Children,” Scheller integrates human limitations into a backdrop of natural beauty. Her work is filled with empathy and reverence — a fitting benediction to a worthy career. In her words, “for every smile of comprehension, I was doubly blessed/ for I was their teacher and this, my joy.”
2022, Main Street Rag Publishing Co., $12.50
ISBN: 9781-59948-920-9
Catena Poetica:
An International Collaboration
Authors: Carolyn Kreiter-Forondam, Chesapeake Bay Branch; Flor Aguilera, Joyce Brinkman, Gabriele Glang
Reviewed by: Ilona Duncan, Chesapeake Bay Branch
“Catena Poetica: An International Collaboration” is an exquisite chapbook of poetry. Renowned American poets Joyce Brinkman and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Mexican poet Flor Aguilera, and German-American poet Gabriele Glang combined their talents and multifaceted cultures to compose five sets. Each set introduces a mythological figure. There is the winged Iris, goddess of rainbows; Hercules, the Greek adventurer; Kokopelli, the Native American flute player; Mazu, the Chinese goddess of the sea; and Yahweh, the god of the Israelites.
“Color,” Glang suggests, derives from chaos and might lead to “Fernweh,” the German painful longing for faraway places. Color brings sapphire waves, Alpine snowdrops, the American goldfinch. “Spice” leads to Tutankhamun’s tomb, Spanish sunshine, and the heart of the Andes. “Music” creates Christmas carols, the tango, and blackbirds’ concerto grosso. “Water” means monsoon rains, a plunge down Acapulco’s canyon, and surfing waves. “Clouds,” destructive and lifesaving, rule over the Earth.
Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, PhD, served as poet laureate of Virginia from 2006 to 2008. She has co-edited three anthologies, co-authored a poem-play, and published three chapbooks and seven books of poetry, including “The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo,” winner of the international Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz Award. She has earned significant recognition for her work, including the Ellen Anderson Award, a Virginia Cultural Laureate Award, multiple first place awards from the Chesapeake Bay Branch, an Edgar Allan Poe Poetry Award, and six Pushcart Prize nominations. She serves as an adjunct faculty member for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Statewide Program.
2022, Finishing Line Press, $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-6466274-1-7
I Used to Wear Shoes Like That:
Family, Friends, Love and a Naked Man in an Elevator
Author: Peggy Newcomb, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Reviewed by: Sharon Canfield Dorsey, Chesapeake Bay Branch
“I Used to Wear Shoes Like That” is a warm walk down memory lane with the author, Peggy Newcomb. The book makes it evident that Newcomb loves her family, appreciates life, and finds humor in everyday situations.
Her colorful stories about growing up in the country are reminders of a less-complicated time. A time when everyone in her small town knew everything about everybody, and Girl Scout camp was the highlight of a Virginia summer.
Newcomb’s travel stories make us wish we’d been there for all the adventures. One involved dodging elk and a thwarted moose attack in Montana, on the Fourth of July, on Pike’s Peak. Other stories center on Hurricane Isabel, COVID-19, and ski trips around the world. Oh, and yes, there is also the tale about the naked man in the elevator.
The combination of prose and poetry in the book makes the family struggles to adopt their three daughters even more poignant. The stories are filled with the same joys and challenges of parenthood we all experience, plus the drama and suspense of the adoption process.
Newcomb’s love story about her husband, John, and their marriage of 51 years shares the joys of life with a soulmate with a keen sense of humor that matched her own. His loss is chronicled in poems that remind us of the importance of living every day to the fullest.
This book is the story of a woman who is at peace with herself and her life but is always ready for a new adventure. So, pour a cup of tea, put your feet up, and enjoy this lovely ride.
2021, High Tide Publications
$13.95 paperback; $5.95 ebook
ISBN: 978-1945990625
Journey to Sky Avenue:
The Life of Mernie Daisy Lewis
Author: Lynn M. Hansen, Modesto Branch
Reviewed by: Louise Kantro, Modesto Branch
Lynn M. Hansen’s historical novel, “Journey to Sky Avenue: The Life of Mernie Daisy Lewis,” pays tribute to her beloved grandmother. Using what Mernie called the epic poem of her life, Hansen added embroidery of her own but did her best to stay true to the facts.
Photos, documents, including those from the Civil War, and family correspondence formed a baseline. Curiosity compelled Hansen to research census documents, church and cemetery records, and histories to broaden her understanding of the times.
History is not, however, the heart and soul of this novel. Hansen employs elements of dialogue, interior monologue, and colorful details of daily life and family stories.
One of the most poignant parts in the book occurs when Mernie suffers a breakdown after the loss of her 12-year-old daughter — and this after having lost two children in infancy. Hansen, knowing of her grandmother’s spirituality but not actually knowing the actual circumstances, imagines how Mernie finds a path back to engage with her husband, Rob, and other children.
Some stories, such as the fatal airplane crash at the farm, are the stuff of family lore, as are the trip to Yellowstone; the family’s hardscrabble existence in a Nebraska soddy; their struggles during the Great Depression, which necessitate two moves between Nebraska and Washington state; and the ways aging and the passage of time affect generations.
Hansen’s vivid details and compelling storytelling bring the reader right into the bosom of this lively family and might just remind you of your own grandparents.
To purchase “Journey to Sky Avenue: The Life of Mernie Daisy Lewis,” email the author at hansenl@yosemite.edu.
Lynn M. Hansen, $20
ISBN: 978-00-578-97527-6
Unstuck in Time
A Memoir and Mystery on Loss and Love
Author: Nancy Avery Dafoe, Central New York Branch
Reviewed by: Andrea Walker, Pensacola Branch
Nancy Avery Dafoe’s “Unstuck in Time” is a weighty reflection on the most difficult journey a parent can take — the death of her child. Dafoe opens her painful experience with, “I had three children, and then, there are two.”
The account is raw, which comes from writing within a year of her son Blaise’s death at the age of 32. Dafoe relates her story along with Blaise’s in chapters that are informative and reflective. She skillfully arranges the chapters, not chronologically, but alternating between chapters of incidents of his life with chapters of her own insight.
Dafoe states, “I had my own powerful lived moments to reveal and the compulsion to document.”
The author describes her inner responses to some of the well-meaning cliches and phrases people use in an attempt to comfort someone who is mourning. Many of us want to comfort others but don’t know what to say. Dafoe advises that anything heartfelt or kind, an anecdote or memory of the deceased are deeply appreciated. Most of all, mourners need listeners when they are ready to talk.
Probably the biggest tribute to Blaise is his innate kindness. It is uplifting to get to know Blaise through the eyes of his mother, family, and friends. His life, though imperfect, is one worthy of imitation. Dafoe does not shy away from flawed situations that were difficult to overcome.
The pages are rich with beautiful anecdotes, touching memories, and painful realizations. Dafoe shares personal details in her valiant effort to help readers understand this aspect of the human condition. Memoir writing is always private, but Dafoe’s treatment of her story holds insight and hope for society.
2021, Pen Women Press
ISBN: 978-1-950251-04-9
Miami’s Yester’Years
Author: Patricia Daly-Lipe, Jacksonville Branch
Reviewed by: Stephanie Pyren-Fortel, Jacksonville Branch
In “Miami’s Yester’Years: Its Forgotten Founder Locke Tiffin Highleyman,” Patricia Daly-Lipe tells an extraordinary account of her grandfather’s contribution to the founding of Miami. Her superlative research of Locke Tiffin Highleyman highlights his lineage from Europe to his place in the development of Miami.
The book takes the reader through time and highlights many accounts of the people and the area: the Seminole Indians, their wars, the swamp thief, and, of course, Flagler and his contribution to Florida’s expansion with the railroad and land development. Daly-Lipe also highlighted many regional geographical accounts and stories of various areas, including the Keys, the Everglades and its sawgrass, and the Okeechobee Lake.
For Florida visitors and residents, it’s difficult to imagine the difficulty of a journey from Jacksonville to Miami before the construction of Interstate 95. The author details her grandfather’s trip, a three-week journey through swamp and jungle by car — with no roads, just ruts — and includes an amazing photo, making it even harder to fathom.
“Miami’s Yester’Years” is interesting and enjoyable. As a relatively recent resident, I found this book a far more intimate and detailed account than others. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the will and tenacity of the men and women who forged their way south to create a paradise for future generations.
Legacy Book Publishing, 2020, $19.95
ISBN: 978-1-947718-56-2
The Taciturn Sky
Author: Cinzi Lavin, Member-at-Large
Reviewed by: Laura Jo Brunson, Jacksonville Branch
“The Taciturn Sky” gives readers a bird’s eye view into the world of America’s “Old Money” society, its rules, and secrets. Specifically, Connecticut’s Old Money society. We meet Bryce Parnell just as he received an inheritance of only a few million from his grandfather. Rather than leverage that into multimillions, he settles for his station while trying to find himself and the place where he fits in.
All the while, Bryce is filled with disdain for the working classes. Not even the woman he wants to be involved with is exempt. Lavin writes, “[Leslie] was the kind of person who was impressed by gimmicky franchises like Rainforest Cafe, the very thought of which made Bryce almost physically ill with disdain.
“Like those awful people who celebrate their birthday at The Cheesecake Factory. He shuddered involuntarily at the thought.”
Thinking about wealthy Northerners moving South for McMansions and winter wonderland vacations, Bryce wonders “how they ever adapted to a lesser existence.”
But he breaks the rules when he refuses to maintain membership in the elite club and invokes the name of John Kenneth Galbraith at a dinner party. And with that comes the sting of losing his standing in the social circle he’s known since birth. He embarks on a rocky quest of self-journey.
“The Taciturn Sky” is an interesting and entertaining peek behind the curtain where the 1 percent live. It’s a short book of 126 pages, with 52 manageable chapters.
Cinzi Lavin, 2021, $9
ISBN: 978-1-7366350-0-1
At Home on the Road
A Wayfaring Couple in North America
Author: Ilona Duncan, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Reviewed by: Gail Wilson Kenna, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Ilona Duncan’s “At Home on the Road” is an emotionally honest and engaging nonfiction account of a wayfaring couple’s journey to distant places in North America. This book is no travelogue. It explores ideas, probes marriage and parenting, portrays how confinement tests a relationship, shows what occurs without life’s usual buttressing props, and relates how one man and one woman differ in their concepts of time and silence.
Add to this the book’s timeframe: the end of the 20th century, complete with poor phone reception, no GPS, reliance on a road atlas, and much more to test a marriage. Ian and Ilona Duncan began their bus journey in 1999 as experienced travelers. They had flown as a Pan American pilot and stewardess to every continent except Antarctica.
When Ian retired, the couple sold their house, bought a converted Marathon Coach, and set out to explore North America. This included rough country in Labrador and the Yukon, with names like Anaktuvuk Pass, Tsiigehtchic, and Tuktoyaktuk.
“At Home on the Road” provides more than 200 pages of travel, wonderful photographs, and helpful maps. Ilona Duncan, a native-born German, speaks six languages, teaches piano and organ, displays an excellent ear for dialogue, and writes memorable scenes. And given their aviation experience and knowledge, the couple created and laminated a predeparture checklist for their 60-foot rig, including a towed Grand Cherokee Jeep.
Each chapter begins with a pithy quotation. And I came to understand the author’s early inclusion of a quote from Goethe, one of Duncan’s favorite authors: “From nature, whichever way one looks, leaps the eternal.”
Ilona Duncan, 2021, $22.31
ISBN: 978-0578604626
The Arden
Authors: Sydney Popovich, Denver Branch, with Ljubo Popovich
Reviewed by: Atlanta Sheridan, Denver Branch
“The Arden” is the latest release from the eerie imaginations of L.S. Popovich, pseudonym of Sydney Popovich; and Ljubo Popovich — a prolific young team who specialize in dark fantasy and dream-haunting description. It’s a tale of unintended consequences and discordant times, ecology gone awry, and trees that aren’t safe to hug.
Three outcasts go from a smoggy near-future dystopia on the verge of biological collapse to a verdant far-future that turns out to be no improvement.
Kaneda drifts through the grungy streets of San Francisco with a blog, a distaste for his family business, and a knack for fixing outdated electronics. Gypsy, an adrenaline addict, shops from one fad-of-the-week to the next. Her friend Gray, an aspiring artist, seems unsuited to school, work, or society. Their barely habitable penthouse in a crumbling condominiumopolis is furnished with scrounged castoffs and one stray kitten. However, the antiquated TV that Kaneda finds is a perilous acquisition: An unlabeled channel displays a hallucinogenic pattern that draws the kitten into the set itself. Gypsy dives in to rescue her; Gray and Kaneda follow in turn.
They land in the Arden, a forest primeval or just plain evil, where islands of human activity eke out a subsistence between overgrown stretches of all-consuming greenery. A few dilapidated buildings remain of the San Francisco they knew, inhabited by fauna in thrall to the flora, mutated humans afraid of any technology.
The three trace separate routes as they learn to survive in the forest. Gypsy finds she prefers the surreal novelty of this future to her unregretted past. Gray is happy to stay where his less-than-Louvre-quality art awes his new audience. Only Kaneda is determined to win back to the San Francisco of his own time. He achieves the feat — and then has to decide what he wants to do about the future whose roots lie in the present he’s regained.
Black Rose Writing, 2021, $18.95
Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-662-3
Tell Me What Happened
Author: Sara W. McDaris, Huntsville, Alabama Branch
Reviewed by: Beth Thames, Huntsville, Alabama Branch
This small, quiet book is beautifully illustrated by Paul Rufe. It demonstrates the power a sister, a mother, and a teacher have to stop schoolyard bullies and teach them a lesson about “where we all come from” in this nation of immigrants.
When a Syrian family moves to America, they have high hopes for a peaceful life with no more bombs and no more war. The mother, Noor, is upset when she discovers that her fifth-grade son, Bilal, is beaten up by classmates each day as he walks home from school with his sister, Aisha.
It is Aisha, a fourth-grader at the same school, who witnesses the bullying and tells their mother about it. Noor struggles with how she can stop this violence, but eventually finds her courage and her voice.
She grabs the hands of her boy and her girl, walks to school with them, and enters a faculty meeting where she tells a roomful of teachers what has been happening. They sit in shocked silence, but the determined mother finishes her story and takes her children home.
Changes occur the next day when the teacher gives the students an assignment that shows how people come from all over the globe, and how each family has a story about its history, its roots, and its customs. We may speak different languages and wear different clothing, but we are more alike than we are different.
Rufe’s simple illustrations carry the theme. McDaris ends her book with questions for her readers about what they have discovered and what happens when we truly listen to each other’s stories.
PlayBig Studios, 2021, $27.50
ISBN 978-0-578-95594-0
29 Houses: A Moving Journey
Author: Andrea Jones Walker, Pensacola Branch
Reviewed by: Karen McAferty Morris, Pensacola Branch
Reading this fascinating memoir calls to mind all the phrases about “home”: “There’s no place like home” and “home sweet home.” In this compelling narrative, Andrea Walker recalls her life from when she is 2 years old until she is 57, having lived in 29 houses. It’s a story about the quest to find stability and a true home.
From a blissful early childhood in Dallas, to the heartbreaking loss of her father at the age of 13, to a nomad-like summer working in carnivals when she was 15, she is constantly uprooted, and must cope with the decisions of her youthful, widowed mother that keep her and her brothers off-balance.
Walker recalls her life in vivid details. She finds happiness in a small Catholic school until financial issues force a transfer to a public junior high, where everything is different. She is sensitive and shy. Constant life changes test her irrepressible spirit and optimism, and pull the reader into her corner, as she rebels in her high school years, embarks on an early marriage, navigates life as a single mother, begins a second marriage, and goes through the challenges of motherhood and achieving educational goals.
Another notable feature of this memoir is the evocation of different decades of her life, such as: “We hung out in the dim light of a lava lamp and listened to Bob Dylan; Woodie Guthrie; Pete Seeger; Joan Baez; and Peter, Paul, and Mary…”
A desire for home is as universal and ancient as Odysseus. Reading Walker’s memoir validates that, and you are right there with her through the places and years as she is tries to achieve just that desire.
Independently published, 2020, $18
ISBN # 979-8669748012
The Edge of Carmel
Author: Barbara Jean Chamberlain, Santa Clara County Branch
Reviewed by: Susan Zerweck, Santa Clara County Branch
The fourth book in the Jaden Steele Mystery series by northern California author Barbara Jean Chamberlain, “The Edge of Carmel” takes us on a quest by heroine Jaden to help a battered woman, who, as with most abused spouses, refuses help because she feels it’s her fault he beats her. The series takes place in quaint, lovely Carmel By the Sea, where Jaden is the owner of a knife shop, Slices of Carmel. Travelers who have been to Carmel will recognize the well-known streets and places in the book.
When the woman goes missing, the husband is arrested for murder, but the plot turns in a bizarre way and Jaden is left with a secret that can never be revealed.
I would suggest that readers also purchase “A Slice of Carmel,” “Slash and Turn,” and “The Sword of Smuggler’s Point,” the three previous books in the series, which are all interesting reading and captivating. This fourth book has many references to those previous reads and perhaps a bit more repetition than the others, but very enjoyable.
Barbara Jean Chamberlain and her husband reside in Aptos, California. She developed the concept for the mysteries while working in Carmel, about a half hour’s drive from her home. She has a bachelor’s degree from University of California Santa Cruz and a masters in library and information science from San Jose State University. This reviewer is looking forward to the next book starring Jaden Steele, “Little Miss Muppet.”
Fantastix Studios, Ink, 2021, $15
ISBN: 978-0983539520
Beyond the Wall
Author: Gail Wilson Kenna, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Reviewed by: Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Chesapeake Bay
Gail Kenna’s second edition of her nonfiction book, “Beyond the Wall,” is both noteworthy and compelling. Inspired by a group of U.S. prisoners incarcerated in Venezuelan prisons in the early 1990s, this prolific author recounts the story of “The Dirty Dozen” in an effort to expose a “pay and you go” penal system in a country where justice is frayed.
What is a person’s moral responsibility when faced with glaring injustice? Kenna answers the question in 14 interrelated stories in “Beyond the Wall.”
From 1991 to 1995, Kenna lived in Caracas with her husband, a defense attaché. She accepted a position in the U.S. Embassy as mental health coordinator. While visiting prisons, she confronted men with drug problems.
Ironically, the drug trade was run by officials and guards. The injustice she witnessed 30 years ago opened her eyes to the uncertainty our democracy confronts in current times, which is why she reissued this book with its memorable image of Lady Justice on the cover.
Throughout the book, Kenna holds the reader’s attention by citing captivating quotes that speak truth about the injustices of erratic prison sentences. In essence, she longs for prisoners to receive “equal punishment for the same offense,” as well as the attention and care that could enable those released to contribute meaningfully to society.
This gifted author’s careful eye for detail carries the reader on an unforgettable journey. Readers will reap the rewards of paying close attention to the lessons embodied in each chapter of this intriguing book. Collectively, these lessons offer a fresh perspective on a subject that will resonate for decades.
Crosshill Creek Publications, 2020, $15
ISBN: 978-1-7341602-3-9
Ledra’s Book
Author: Luanna K. Leisure, Santa Clara County Branch
Reviewed by: Edie Matthews, Santa Clara County Branch
Luanna Leisure’s memoir of her indomitable mother could have been titled “Poetry, Pies, and Perseverance.” The youngest of six, Leisure did comprehensive research that not only chronicles her mother’s life but includes family genealogy, historical and contemporary photographs, her mother’s poetry, interviews with friends, relatives, and contributions from 11 of her mother’s grandchildren.
In 1925, at age 15, Ledra A. White eloped with her 19-year-old sweetheart, Ethmer Lynch. Clearly a love match, the 45-year marriage survived the Dust Bowl, the Depression, and numerous trips between Missouri and California, all while raising six children.
Early on, the couple lived in an isolated two-room cabin with no electricity or running water. Ledra worked side-by-side with her husband on 80 acres belonging to his parents. She helped raise the livestock, milk cows, churn butter, cultivate a garden, and cook the meals for her growing family and her in-laws. Four of her children were born in the cabin — a friend helping with the births.
Ledra’s creativity could not be contained. Poems might be sparked by inspiration, current events, or necessity. When her daughter struggled to write a poem for school, Ledra provided the topic. She opened the door, gazed out, and called to her daughter, “Belva, get a pencil and paper. It snowed last night.”
A born actress, Ledra performed poems, songs, and a scene from “Mary Clary” she’d memorized for a school contest. She entertained at senior centers, and she’d spontaneously do a rendition of the Charleston for Leisure’s friends.
Always seeking a better life for their burgeoning family, the Lynches finally settled in Visalia, California. However, Ledra never lost touch with her roots. In addition to a diligent work ethic, her conversations were punctuated with Missouri colloquialisms like “All Swan!” (An exclamation for “Wow!”)
As the children got married and provided grandchildren, Ledra and Ethmer’s home became the gathering place for Sunday dinners. Fried chicken was always on the menu, along with homemade pies. A skilled cook, if unexpected company dropped by, Ledra was in the kitchen whipping up a pie to enjoy with coffee. She often used peaches from the tree in the backyard. Her grandchildren recall these Sundays with fondness.
Luanna Leisure’s tribute to her mother is a narrative that will be treasured by the Lynch clan. It reminds us of our ancestors’ spirit and determination to overcome obstacles and struggles in a quest to survive, raise a family, and achieve the American Dream.
2020, Independently published LuLu.com, $13.16
ISBN: 978-0578169989
Our Heart Psalms
Author: Joyce Ellis, Minnesota Branch
Reviewed by Mary Halverson Schofield, Minnesota Branch
“Our Heart Psalms” is a devotional book that offers tools to those who are on a journey, or want to start a journey, to form a closer relationship with God. Joyce Ellis, an inspirational speaker, has spoken throughout the USA and Central America, has written 16 books, and serves as a missionary in Guatemala.
Ellis chooses her life stories, excerpts from other soul-searchers’ perspectives, and passages from “The Book of Psalms” to show how she has written her own psalms. She then teaches the reader how to write tailor-made psalms in their own life’s situations, stressing pouring out one’s heart to God as the psalmists of old.
In the main body of the book, chapters are crafted around feelings such as pain, anger, and depression. Each chapter begins with a quote backed up with a psalm from the Bible. Ellis relates her own life stories coping with the emotion and shares a psalm she or someone else has written for that feeling. Readers are invited to write their own reaction to that emotion. Each chapter follows the same pattern. One can find the emotion he or she is dealing with and get to work writing the psalm.
This book is for seekers striving to find deeper meaning with God by getting closer to Him through praying and listening to his guidance. “Our Heart Psalms” can be used when needed and not as a forced or a stone-skipping-on-water book.
“Our Heart Psalms” is a toolbox you will be grateful to have while finding the fires that burn in your heart and by communing with God through writing your experiences down in psalm. It offers a fresh start anyone for feeling adrift from their relationship with God, or for those who are taking a fresh look at themselves and their bond with Him.
You will use this book in peace, angst, joy, pain, and in every other emotion you can conjure to talk and write with God about.
2020, SonRise Devotionals, $12.99
ISBN: 978-1645262701
Confluence
Author: Karen McAferty Morris, Pensacola Branch
Reviewed by Andrea Walker, Pensacola Branch
“Confluence,” Karen McAferty Morris’ second, award-winning chapbook, is a small book of thought-provoking poems that will keep you returning to reread and pause to contemplate. Often nostalgic, sometimes melancholic, her poetry contains themes of seasons and aging and tells stories of people, incidents, and moments that flow together with the poet’s pensive musings.
Her title poem, “Confluence,” pays tribute to her father and shows the past flowing into the present. The language is poignant as she “smiled until a pinch of sorrow behind my eyes took it away.”
A master of form, Morris opens her book with “Not as Seasons in Turn,” a Sapphic stanza. Its melancholy tone emphasizes memories of losses that happen unexpectedly, unlike the orderly seasons. “Radiance: To My New Love,” written in the more familiar form of sonnet, reveals the flowing together of dark into light and back again.
Readers will find perfect haiku, true to nature, true to form, true to portraying a snapshot with a revelation or another perspective. Always seeing something new in nature, the poet interspersed these seemingly simple poems, like a cool breeze, throughout the pages.
People populate the poetry, and Morris carefully observes people and circumstances. The most intriguing poem is “After a Miracle,” written after reading a newspaper article about a young girl in Ethiopia who had been kidnapped, beaten, and left to die. Relatives found her being guarded by lions, seemingly a miracle, indeed. The brutal and sad event flows into something mystical. The poet then speculates on the effect, asking, “What is life like after a marvel, can it return to the ordinary — or do those touched often pause to search the skies, or watch the pieces of the world just beyond the corners of their wary eyes?”
Although the poems speak for themselves, painting unmistakable images, Morris includes photographs that enhance the work, places that will invite you to slow down and contemplate. Such is the effect of the concluding poem, “Channeling Thoreau in a Time of Coronavirus.” This poem speaks lovingly to us about the unknowns we are currently facing and suggesting we “live more bravely, if need be, by ourselves in a small cabin near a pond.” “Confluence” offers readers an insightful view of living life more deliberately.
2020, Independently published, $9
ISBN: 979-8633131192
River Country: A Poem-Play
Author: Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda (& Robert P. Arthur), Chesapeake Bay Branch
Reviewed by: Susan Camp, Chesapeake Bay Branch
“What is it about the Bay that startles the heart?” asks Amber, the protagonist in “River Country: A Poem-Play,” a new publication from poet and artist Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda and Virginia poet and playwright Robert P. Arthur.
Arthur selected poems from two of Kreiter-Foronda’s poetry collections, “Death Comes Riding” and “River Country,” and developed them into the story of Amber and her alter ego Suzanne, both representations of Kreiter-Foronda herself, who relive the memory of a near-death experience as a young girl and the anguish of their mother’s final illness and death.
When we meet Amber, she has found love with Patricio, her “Bolivian Indian,” a man who belongs to a land and culture far removed from Amber’s home beside a quiet river flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. He encourages Amber to speak of her grief. In the final scene, Amber achieves a sense of peace as she speaks of the valley in Bolivia, where she first met Patricio.
“I am told if I pray, a deity
will carry me again to the Andes’ heights.
Today it is enough to send
my spirit there to rest…”
Kreiter-Foronda’s luminous, lyrical poetry casts a magic spell as Amber reunites with the ghosts of her mother and father, finally releasing them to their rest. The haunting imagery of her descriptions of the creatures and plants that inhabit the river and its banks provides us with a feast for the senses. “What is it about the Bay that startles the heart?”
Several folk songs, some traditional and others with new lyrics, are woven into the action of the play. The songs are accompanied by flute, guitar, and humble tin whistle, complementing the pastoral imagery and the atmosphere of plaintive longing for the mother’s love that has been lost and can never be regained on earth.
Read “River Country: A Poem-Play” aloud with your friends, your book club, or your writing group. Let Kreiter-Foronda’s words fill you with renewed awe for the glorious mysteries of life, death, and love both old and new.
Virginia Poet Laureate Emerita Dr. Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda has co-edited three anthologies and published nine books of poetry, including “The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo,” winner of the Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz. She has also won the Ellen Anderson Award, a Virginia Cultural Laureate Award, and a resolution of appreciation from the Virginia Board of Education for her service as poet laureate, an Edgar Allan Poe Poetry Award, among others. Her poems have been published widely throughout the United States and abroad.
Unicorn Bay Press, 2019, $17.95
ISBN 9781943416479
In the Beginning
Author: Mary Lou Taylor, Santa Clara Branch
Reviewed by: Kathie Isaac-Luke, Modesto Branch
Mary Lou Taylor’s third poetry collection, “In the Beginning,” is an extraordinary blending of art and poetry. Each carefully crafted poem, using the Bible as a reference, is accompanied by a beautiful stencil print from the late artist David Park’s, “Genesis Suite.”
The story of how the book came together is as fascinating as the work itself. David Park was an American painter who was very influential in the Figurative Movement, which in the 1950s represented a departure from Abstract Impressionism. Taylor discovered Park’s artwork on an art tour and was captivated by his striking and delicate images. Then, a series of synchronistic events came together to make the project possible.
Taylor fortuitously learned that the artist’s daughter was in her book club and gave permission to publish the prints. She also contributed a moving memoir of her father, which is included in the book. Taylor then learned that a fellow poet’s daughter was photographing Park’s paintings for a retrospective planned by three museums. From that concurrence came the 14 beautifully photographed illustrations that inspired the poems.
Other memorable poems include retellings of the “Tower of Babel,” “Joseph and the Pharaoh,” and “Jacob’s Ladder.” In concert, these poems and pictures both augment and clarify each other.
Together, the poems and visuals are powerful and evocative. The poem “Lost,” told in Eve’s voice, speaks of the loss of Eden and is enhanced by a resonant image depicting the moment the earliest couple pluck the apple. A solitary image of a woman looking over her shoulder is accompanied by the poem “Lot’s Wife,” which recounts the feelings and emotions of a woman forced to leave her home.
This volume of ekphrastic poetry is a pleasure on many levels. It can be appreciated for the sheer enjoyment of the poems and the art, as well as for a glimpse into the creative process, shared by this talented and generous poet.
2019, Frog on the Moon Press, $20
ISBN: 978-1-5323-8089-1
More Winds
A Second Collection of Poems
Author: Carol H. Ehrlich, Denver Branch
Reviewer: Ann Klaiman, Denver Branch
“I travel the back nine,” says Carol Ehrlich, speaking as both golfer and 93-year-old. Throughout “More Winds,” she speaks with many additional voices.
Some of us read books of poetry neatly, front to back; others read in chunks and random flippings. The poems of “More Winds” reveal themselves comfortably with either method. Be sure to appreciate the cover graced with Willem Wils’ gorgeous watercolor before diving in.
Ehrlich’s poems are relatively short, with only half a dozen going onto a second page. Some poems fall into stanzas. Most lay down uneven lines, a hallmark of her chosen form: free verse. These are not overly dense poems. They are from the heart, honest, sometimes with humor, and often with the impact of understatement.
One seven-poem sequence takes readers through scenes of love and life with Max, her husband of nearly 70 years. First there’s “My Gift for You” with “my steady alwaysness you can count on like the dear mountains,” next into “Love transcends the noise,” then “Just when I thought we were too old for romance,” on through “as the alpenglow follows the sunset I know you haven’t gone,” and in “Solitude — Thoughts of a New Widow,” ending the sequence, there is “comfort in the echoes of my heart.”
After writing factual, objective material for years, Ehrlich became a poet and says, “The charge in both is truth.” She chooses to see the good in people and the glory in nature, and that’s a legacy she will leave to her family, including 12 great grandchildren.
In the poem “On Becoming 86 Years Old,” after recapping the joys of a full life, Ehrlich concludes, like a climber taking in the view: “I catch my breath at the top of the stairs — I know all this is still mine to live.” And for readers to enjoy.
2020, iUniverse, $10.99
ISBN: 978-1-5320-9411-8
The Missing Driscoll
Author: Judith Fabris, Palm Springs Branch
Reviewed by: Donna Weeks, Palm Springs Branch
It’s 1966 and two young cousins from opposite sides of the Atlantic make contact by mail. Thus continues the sweeping story of two interwoven families, connected through generations of shared experiences, both exhilarating and tragic. This is the second book in what will become a trilogy by author Judith Fabris.
Set primarily in the 1970s, the plot revolves around the loving friendship between two cousins, Penny and Lavinia, and the theft of a priceless painting. Penny is the curator of a Washington, D.C., museum dedicated to the work of her grandmother, Maud Driscoll. Penny’s British cousin, Lavinia, who lives in New York with her family, has just suffered a horrific loss.
When Penny is invited to co-curate a retrospective of Maud’s paintings at Paris’ Jeu de Paume museum, it offers the young women a new beginning and a thrilling adventure. En route to Paris, disaster strikes when a featured painting is stolen. A dangerous stranger stalks the two women, putting their lives and Penny’s reputation in peril.
Fabris does a masterful job of hooking our attention and guiding us to fabulous locations — Paris, New York, East Berlin, and Southern California’s fabled beach communities, which she describes in lush detail.
She introduces fascinating characters, like Vie Lee, a determined private detective hired to investigate the theft. Lavinia’s German neighbor, Trudy, takes Penny to East Berlin to enlist the services of Ernst Weber, a collector of art recovered from the Nazis. Gerard Troyer, curator of the Jeu de Paume, and his two handsome sons, Michel and Jean-Luc, become family to the two cousins. The sinister Bill Tennent adds an element of danger to the plot.
Mystery, romance, friendship and family, with a lovely glimpse of life among the privileged are present in this novel. Anyone seeking a compelling story, beautifully told, will enjoy reading this book.
A Vegas Publisher, LLC, 2020, $14.99
ISBN: 978-0-9968437-6-8
The Sugarplum Tree
Author: Andrea Antico, Denver Branch
Illustrator: Virginia L. Small, Denver Branch
Reviewed by: Carol Ehrlich, Denver Branch
Capturing the magic of the classic children’s story about a sugarplum fairy, Andrea Antico sets the stage for an imaginative winter narrative about a barren deciduous tree living in the middle of an evergreen forest.
Neglected and even abused by children who come to play and picnic in the forest, the tree rues the loss of its vibrant summer self. The legendary fairy discovers it drooping amidst the forest greenery and voila! with her wand, transforms it into a sugarplum tree.
Charming illustrations make vivid the elements of Antico’s story: initial disdain for ugliness (the poor tree), recognition of hidden value (discovering beauty in the tree once it was decorated), and the heartwarming benefits of kindness (the ultimate fun around the tree, then its spillover goodness to family and friends).
Young readers see without being told in so many words the rewards of inclusion. It’s a skillfully executed lesson in humanity, one created by an elementary school teacher and librarian who knows kids — and whose grasp of young children’s capacities is obvious.
She has added the bonus of concrete suggestions for teachers (and presumably parents) to enhance the reading or telling of the book. And Virginia Small’s delightful, sometimes surprising illustrations add fillip to the work.
“The Sugarplum Tree” would be a worthy addition to offerings in libraries and schools, as well as a fun hold for families with young children where bedtime stories and quiet-time story hour would welcome this addition.
2020, Kindereads, $16.99
ISBN# 978-0-09893064-47
These Flecks of Color: New and Select Poems
Author: Carolyn Kreither-Foronda, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Reviewed by: Ann Falcone Shalaski, Chesapeake Bay Branch
Carolyn Kreither-Foronda’s masterful poems go outside the box in her recent book, “These Flecks of Color: New and Selected Poems.” A lush gem, her collection is dazzling, fluid, moving, and good for the soul.
Always on the lookout for the presence of wonder, Foronda masterfully created poems that explore individual responsibility in relation to what is natural.
In the words of Hollins University professor Cathryn Hankla, Foronda’s poems “strike the ear along with the intelligence, evoking the natural world, visual art, questions of self, transcendence, and responsibility in relation to what is natural.”
The poems in “These Flecks of Color” create a cohesive whole that mirrors her personally: honesty, generosity, and truth in her writings.
Not only will the readers see the things in life that are worthwhile, but they see further and deeper because of this poet’s brilliant, keen observations.
San Francisco Bay Press, 2018, $14.99
ISBN: 978-0996835039
Ash on the Wind
Author: Sandra Berris, Greenwich Branch
Reviewed by: Brenda Layman, Central Ohio Branch
Sandra Berris presents a collection of powerfully moving poems that are not for the faint of heart. Her unflinching, yet delicate, poetry confronts the human condition with carefully chosen language that drives her images straight to the reader’s soul.
The works are arranged in five sections. Section I begins with an arresting poem titled “If Lights Dim.” Berris begins with the memory of President Kennedy’s assassination, a topic familiar to everyone who was older than toddlerhood in 1963. From this shared memory of shock and horror, she moves to a personal one, when a mass murderer was executed by electrocution and lights dimmed across the community from the enormous drain on the current. The poem becomes even more personal as the narration continues to the memory of a classmate’s family being murdered, and the resulting fear.
Calamity, death, and fear edge ever closer in this poem, which ends with the line, “What makes you remember?” We are off, our armor of distance stripped from us, vulnerable and ready to journey through the collection and feel the poet’s art as she means it to be felt.
The four ensuing sections hang together as separate units, yet all harmonize in the single volume. Several poems are prefaced with quotations from other literary works, providing the reader with clues to the resonance of ideas within the lines that follow.
Berris is also skilled in the placement of words on the page, as evidenced in “Mating Dance,” and in her use of enjambment in lines such as these from “Postcard from Harbour Island, Bahamas”:
“a noisy farewell and unexpected hello
from those traveling to town, and I
imagine the clouds of mauve dust rising
with each thrum of the engine as I watch.”
Leaving the pronoun at the end of the line gives it weight, as of a foot raised and ready to step forward, potential energy that translates as poetic energy. Berris maintains this energy throughout, ending with the brief, pregnant lines of “High Coo-Coo.” Poetry lovers will want this book in their collections.
2017, Muse Ink Press, $26
ISBN: 978-0-9859915-2-4
While…
Born during WWII. One era. Two lives.
Author: Margaret “Peg” Hanna, Central Ohio Branch
Reviewed by: Rosemary Barkes, Central Ohio Branch
The first paragraph of “While…” sets the tone for the rest of the book: “While Britain and allies bombed Germany to end Hitler’s intent to control Europe and Britain, Brunhilde Maria Maurer was born and raised in southern Germany.”
Hilde and Margaret’s lives are recounted in this interesting book of comparisons. Over a cup of coffee and a long period of time, they spun their tales. Peg was the American homemaker, Hilde her cleaning lady.
While both women were born in the ‘40s and had fathers who served their countries—Margaret’s in the United States as an air raid warden and Hilde’s fighting for his country, Germany—the rest of their lives were as different as night and day.
Peggy was born into a middle class mid-Western family whose educated parents were lovingly devoted to her. They saw to it that her needs were met and opportunities were given. Although she was an only child, she did not lack for friends. In high school she had girlfriends (and, yes, sleepovers), caring teachers, and cousins galore. It was years later, after the birth of her six children, that Peggy and her husband found their marriage stressed and in havoc. Yet, her life held promise.
Hilde’s life did not.
When she was 3 years old, she witnessed a young boy on the ground writhing in pain after an exploded bomb had sprayed him. No one dared touch him, not even his screaming mother, because the silver substance was fatal. Hilde watched the burning agent spread throughout his body as his blackened flesh began to curl. The scene would forever haunt her.
Hilde was born into poverty. Her mother was an alcoholic with mental problems. Household chores fell onto Hilde’s shoulders, as did looking out for her younger brother. Her father did not return home after the war and when he did, he was verbally and physically abusive. No regular schooling, few friends, fewer enrichment opportunities.
Is it any wonder, then, that Hilde chose unstable young men as husbands? She bore four girls and tried her best to raise them in a safe and healthy environment, but the stain of poverty, fear, and heartache remained. She turned her pain and sorrow into an energy and determination that sustained her and the girls throughout her life, overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds.
Both Peggy and Hilde were survivors. Their individual personalities, family life, and everyday struggles were not only a study in contrasts, but an educational tool for those interested in life during the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s.
2011, Author House, $14.95
ISBN: 978-1456715212
Elemental
Poems of Wind, Earth, and Fire
Author: Karen McAferty Morris, Pensacola Branch
Reviewed by: Claire Massey, Pensacola Branch
“Elemental,” Karen McAferty Morris’ chapbook, won second place in the 2017 Vinnie Ream Letters Competition. Pen Women continue to reap the benefits of her talents: She is the national poetry editor.
The collection is subtitled “Poems of Wind, Earth, and Fire,” and indeed, they are. She poignantly and memorably explores the changing seasons of earth, the winds that blow through our minds, and the fires that burn in our hearts.
In this volume, Morris creates paths that beckon us to move through woods, water, and fields to arrive at tender places where we can remember our dead and acknowledge our losses. She gazes without flinching at the realities of aging, and we feel her dismay, her undisguised longing for what was and will not be again.
Her diversity and range are such that the poems celebrate winter’s destruction with the “rebel beauty” of the first harbingers of spring, evoke the eroticism of making love by the sea, spur us to action with her portraits of oppressed women in pain.
These poems are about seekers of beauty, poetry, freedom, legacies unexplored, and second chances. This is not a collection that will end up in a trunk or be left on a shelf in the book exchange. You will revisit these poems when you revisit your own sacred places, when you meditate and muse upon your own private mindscapes of earth, wind and fire.
2018, CreateSpace, $9
ISBN: 978-1985727724
The Private War of William Styron
Author: Mary Wakefield Buxton, Tidewater Branch
Reviewed by: Susanna-Judith Rae, Indianapolis Branch
“The Private War of William Styron” is Mary Wakefield Buxton’s 12th published book and first novel. Buxton knew novelist and essayist Styron (1925-2006) well — he was her cousin and writing mentor.
The volume presents the future Nobel Prize winner’s views on writers’ challenges in general, as well as specifics of his agonizing struggles with his harsh, passive-aggressive stepmother, Elizabeth, whom his father married when “Billy” was 14 and still grieving his mother’s death. Elizabeth often shames young Styron: “Elbows off the table! … And look at the position of your fork! Hold it like this. … You’re eating like an animal.”
Styron, frequently lonely and despairing, quickly embraces the nickname “Sty,” as suggested by his friend, Tom. Sty’s favorite subject was English; he knew early in life that he would be a writer, not a doctor, or, at least, a lawyer or engineer, as Elizabeth insisted. Buxton summarizes the book’s thesis this way: “He … engaged in a fight for the survival of his very own soul.”
Buxton skillfully adds humor to this serious work. When their headmaster drives Tom and Sty to Elizabeth and Sty’s father’s wedding, the author writes, “Sty looked like he was on his way to the dentist to have a tooth pulled, rather than traveling to a gala event. … He had visions of three ushers carrying him kicking and screaming to the front pew, and then tying him down.”
Buxton adroitly weaves back and forth from Styron’s memories of his mother’s death and, 35 years later, of Elizabeth’s death. How ironic and disconcerting for Styron that the mother he loved dearly and the stepmother he hated intensely both died from cancer.
Perhaps Buxton’s greatest strengths are her use of imagery and finely tuned word usage, including “rambunctious,” “rapscallion,” and “a pair of tottering scribblers.” Undoubtedly readers never get enough of Buxton’s picturesque imagery: “…He liked to watch a storm form in the west and come tearing downriver, with an armada of black clouds and wind so strong, it turned the mirrored water into whitecaps in seconds and sent the pine trees leaning hard over, as if in prayer.”
She employs these proficiencies throughout the book as readers ponder whether Sty will be able to be his own person in the midst of frequent disgust and condemnation from Elizabeth, as well as pressure at school, where a nonathletic student feels ashamed as classmates, teachers, and administrators repeatedly celebrate excellence in sports.
Long after finishing this intriguing book, readers will surely ponder Buxton’s insights about the trials and remarkable achievements of one of our nation’s beloved writers.
2014, Brandylane Publishers, $15
ISBN: 978-1939930019
Aspirations of the Heart
Author: Katie Hart Smith, Atlanta Chapter
Reviewed by: Barbara Clarke, Atlanta Branch
“Aspirations of the Heart,” Smith’s first novel in the Sacred Heart series, was nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year in the First Novel category in 2017. The Sacred Heart series is historical fiction focusing on the emerging medical community in Atlanta in the early 1900s.
Addie Engel is a small-town girl who wants nothing more than to leave her family farm, venture out in the wider world of 1913 Georgia, and become a successful nurse. But the times aren’t so friendly to a young woman determined to buck society’s expectations and do more than marry, have children, and keep house. If society has its way, she will never leave Hope, Georgia, nor the boy who desires to be more than just her friend.
Tragedy strikes and with it comes an opportunity Addie can’t refuse. Thrust into the rapidly growing city of Atlanta, she’s soon immersed in a world of powerful people intent upon their own plans and schemes, including Lester Schwinn, a conniving man hell-bent on making his mysterious cure-all tonic a household name at any cost.
“Aspirations of the Heart” was placed in the Governor’s Mansion Library by Georgia’s First Lady, Sandra Deal, who wrote, “I found it very engaging and informative. You wove a good story from absolute desperation to inspired achievement through the kindness and caring of the characters of good influence. Sinister evil struggled to undo the dreams and hopes of early Atlanta visionaries but good won out, which is always my hope. I enjoy historical fiction because I can learn factual material while enjoying the writer’s creative webbing and development of characters, settings and interactions toward an evasive or happy ending.”
“Aspirations of the Heart” is the passionate tale of Addie’s self-discovery, but also the city of Atlanta and the growing pains the 20th century brought. Filled with vivid and memorable characters, and replete with historically and socially accurate details, it is a panoramic novel ideal for lovers of Southern fiction and for anyone who enjoys a well-spun, exciting, colorful tale.
2016, Deeds Publishing, $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-944193-33-1
Entangled with a Sociopath
Author: Florence St. John, penname for Janet Sierzant, Vero Beach Branch
Reviewed by: Barbara Routen, Tampa Branch
In the #MeToo culture, in which women give voice to their abuse, Florence St. John’s book, “Entangled with a Sociopath,” is a must-read. She tells a painful truth: Narcissistic sociopaths, devoid of moral responsibility and conscience, dominate trusting, empathetic women by sweeping them off their feet. They keep women off balance via random verbal attacks, manipulation, moments of affection, and emotional withdrawal.
St. John’s story shares her own journey with a charming, domineering sociopath. At first, sexual intimacy is great, but then nonexistent. He crosses boundaries. He doesn’t let her eat. He guilts her into bankrolling grandiose schemes. If he repays her, it covers but a fraction of his debt. Sometimes he re-borrows the repayment the same day. If she refuses to cooperate, he threatens to leave her.
The author quotes psychotherapist Ross Rosenberg: “The selfish and controlling narcissist effortlessly leads the dance while the codependent intuitively and reflexively predicts and follows his moves. Clearly, one was ‘born’ to lead while the other to follow.”
From the start, such quotes and the unfolding story show the reader the trouble Florence is in, but she doesn’t see it. Family members warn her about the relationship, but she doesn’t listen. The suspense comes from not knowing if she can — or will —untangle herself.
St. John’s narrative is absorbing and sheds insight into how women get caught up with sociopaths and addicts and cannot walk away — and explains how some eventually do.
“The man I first met was an actor and I’m left with the true man behind the mask,” she writes. “My heart remembers the love I once felt for him and the plans we made for a glistening future. … Obsessed with the picture-perfect life, I pushed forward, grasping for hope and getting thin air. The hardest part of letting go is accepting that nothing had been real.”
“Entangled with a Sociopath” is a good book for adults, especially women, and anyone in an abusive situation. It is not a diagnostic tool or a self-help book — it is one woman’s story.
2012, revised 2016, La Maison Publishing Inc., $19.95
ISBN: 978-0982711415
In the Company of Women
An Anthology Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of the CNY Branch of the NLAPW
Authors: Central New York Branch Pen Women
Reviewed by: Patricia Setser, Jacksonville Branch
The title of this book is most appropriate. When you read “In the Company of Women,” you will feel as though you have met with and had the privilege of being personally acquainted with these writers and artists. This book should inspire other Pen Women branches to create their own anthologies.
The project was accomplished very successfully in this lovely, full-color, softbound book. As I read it from cover to cover, I felt connected to each of these Pen Women. I learned about their early history and how they are associated as writers and artists with their community.
Each chapter opened the door to new experiences, some painful and some hopeful. I felt the strength of the women as they met and faced what life brought to them.
As the pages were turned, I took the time to appreciate the beautiful and inspiring art. The poetry will educate and illuminate your minds. The depth of the thoughts will draw you into another time and space. You will see pictures in your own minds and feel linked to their stories.
Don’t miss the opportunity to enjoy this book.
Book available through Mary Gardner via email to mlgardner37@ yahoo.com $18 plus $2 for shipping and handling.
Sister of Saidnaya
A Syrian Immigrant’s Tale
Author: Rose Ann Kalister, Central Ohio Branch
Reviewed by: Brenda Layman, Central Ohio Branch
Twelve-year-old Nadra wishes with all her heart to accompany her parents to America, the place her father describes as “that rich, beautiful land where everything is possible.” When her wish is granted, she can hardly believe her good fortune. Her two older sisters are left behind in the village of Saidnaya, Syria, while Nadra, her parents, and her younger siblings journey to their new home. They settle in a community of Christian Syrians in Hedley, West Virginia, and open a confectionery shop. Nadra’s hopes of education and opportunity are dashed as she realizes that her role in the new country is to care for the younger children and help her parents with cooking, cleaning, and minding the store. Nadra is a gifted cook, and the descriptions of Syrian foods and cooking are rich and sensual. At the tender age of 16, Nadra is forced to marry the man her parents have chosen for her and become a wife and soon, a mother.
“Sister of Saidnaya” is the story of an immigrant woman caught between the expectations of the old country and the possibilities of a new one. The years pass. Nadra’s younger siblings and her children find their places among the “Amerikan,” while Nadra faces challenge after challenge, responsibility upon responsibility, but she never gives up her dream of pursuing her own happiness.
This book is a love story as well. John, Nadra’s husband, is a good man. Older than Nadra by several years, he adores his wife, even as she challenges him. Their relationship is strained by family, economic depression, war, and burdens from the past. Nadra wonders if their marriage can survive.
The author, Rose Ann Kalister, is a friend and colleague of mine. Over the past several years, I have listened as she read portions of her work and watched as she meticulously conducted research and included accurate details of early 20th-century Hedley, West Virginia. I expected the book to be good, but my expectations have been exceeded. “Sister of Saidnaya” is authentic, touching, thoughtful, humorous, and eloquent. It is the story of an immigrant’s struggle to participate in the offerings of a land of opportunity. In our nation of immigrants, it is a story that speaks to us all.
2017, Boyle & Dalton, $14.95
ISBN: 9781633371811
Life After Darkness
Author: Cathy Wield, Denver Branch, CO
Reviewed by: Kelly Ann Compton, Denver Branch (with input from Virginia Campbell, NLAPW president, Pikes Peak Branch)
“Light After Darkness” shares the enormously powerful journey of Cathy Wield, a woman struggling with severe clinical depression. Wield, a wife and the mother of four children, was working as a physician in a hospital in England when depression first invaded her life. What followed would be seven years of self-injury that included burning herself, head banging, and cutting — always with the goal of ending her misery. She was hospitalized frequently and for months at a time, with home visits made possible at times when she appeared more stable.
Cathy Wield shares her remarkable story of triumph over depression via narrative and diary entries. Also included are writings from her doctors and her husband, verifying Wield’s story. Her husband’s “In Sickness and in Health” explains how he thinks he and the children survived.
After years of therapy and many, many medications, all seemed hopeless. Even the medical professionals were considering giving up hope of recovery. Then, after seven years, a specialized neurosurgery was performed on Wield’s brain; the result was a miracle.
This incredible story of struggle, pain, and anguish addresses the stigma surrounding mental health issues and the humiliation of being a doctor who is ill. Because of this book, changes to mental health care began happening in England. Due to its content, Wield’s book is often a difficult read. But know this: “Light After Darkness” is a very worthwhile book telling an amazing story.
2006, Radcliffe Publishing Ltd, $28.95
ISBN: 978-1-85775-729-3
Dear Myra, Dear Max
A Conversation About Aging
Authors: Myra F. Levick, Boca Raton Branch, and Maxine Borowsky Junge
Reviewed by: Louise Mirkin, Boca Raton Branch, FL
“Dear Myra, Dear Max: A Conversation about Aging” is a thoughtful and thought-provoking, first-of-its-kind book. Neither a textbook nor a handbook, it is an exchange of emails between two women (ages 93 and 80) describing their experiences and expressing their thoughts and opinions on the concerns and challenges they confronted in the process of aging. Their observations and insights contradict and disprove many myths and assumptions widely believed about the aging population.
Representing the first generation of seniors living into their 80s and 90s, whom they call “social pioneers trekking along a path with few landmarks or touchstones to guide the way,” they are making their own decisions, actively living their lives as they wish.
The book would be useful not only to seniors as they age, but to their families and friends, to psychologists and other therapists who work with older adults, to administrators and professional staff in independent and assisted living facilities, and to those contemplating their own futures after traditional retirement age. I strongly recommend this very readable and highly enlightening book!
2017, CreateSpace, $20
ISBN #978-1974444427
Just Two Girls
Author: Rachael Ikins, Central New York Branch
Reviewed by: Treanor Baring, Bayou City II Branch, TX
How do you read poetry? In the author’s or editor’s order, treating the body of work as a whole? Or do you open the book at random, letting serendipity guide you? I ask because I recommend that before you read Rachael Ikins’ latest collection of poems, “Just Two Girls,” you throw away your usual playbook of expectations.
This book is its own special journey. Whether you take a linear path or fling about in Brownian motion across Ikins’ poetic universe, be prepared for burned dinners, unanswered texts, and unseen sunsets. Once you have started, you won’t put it down. I also recommend you shelve it at eye level so you can pull it out often to enjoy Ikins’ lyric breath of life over and over.
The title of the first poem, “Pondering Life, I Lean Toward Rhyme,” sums up Ikins’ voice in this collection precisely. The life pondered in this particular poem is a deer fly, its sting and the seeming futility of an insect’s life. Deceptively naturalistic. Until the poem’s final stanza zooms out to the author’s own mortality, and asks, “Who will consider my wing’s beat, their sacred patterns, my quirks? Will the itch linger?”
Throughout the collection, life is pondered with the same wonderment. Ikins searches for meaning and finds it, not only in her signature visual images, but in the simplicity (and therefore complexity) of everyday experiences. Her poems pull no punches. You will find no artifice or sugar coating here. You will find “[e]ndurance, resilience, toughness, patience,” as in her description of an elder Scrabble shark.
Unforgettable characters populate these poems, from the “Scrabble Maven” and “Pioneer Woman,” to an irascible rooster or a blinking tree toad. Ikins draws beauty as well as hard truths from unexpected places: a deer fly, a chipped tooth, or an old truck. Grounded, but not earth-bound, her images bring “joy, like helium” to raise us “to wakefulness.” Beware, her vision of the aesthetic splendor in ordinary things is addictive. You have been forewarned: Turn off the stove before you embark.
2017, Clare Songbirds Publishing House, $16
ISBN: 978-1-947653-05-4
The Swift Seasons
Author: Mollee Kruger, Bethesda Branch
Reviewed by: Brenda Layman, Central Ohio Branch
“Real life people keep too much frozen inside themselves,” muses Willa Warsaw, a recently widowed, 80-something resident in an assisted living facility for aging Jewish folks. The place is known only by the expressionless name, SVM. Willa, the central character in Mollee Kruger’s novel, suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, an affliction that makes it difficult for her to speak. Inside Willa, however, is a poet who spends her time reading the works of Oliver Wendell Holmes and writing eloquent, insightful journal entries that record her journey through mourning to her entry into a new phase of life.
Other characters abound, so many that it is difficult at first for the reader to recognize them all when they appear, but soon each of them emerges as a distinct personality. These characters are drawn with broad strokes that, at first, present them as mere types. However, as the story progresses, glimpses of these characters as they once were and still are within themselves emerge, and Kruger’s tale deepens.
When a new man arrives at SVM, widowed, childless Willa, ever a romantic, falls in love. Parkinson’s Disease renders him increasingly frail, imprisoning him in a body that is less and less able to function. Willa, however, sees with her heart, and they connect immediately. She imagines a glorious romance that might have been, and wonders if that is enough to build a strong relationship between them. Reality forces her to consider whether there simply is not enough time left for them to make a life together.
Kruger’s well-written story is gloriously tender in its depiction of aging and loss. One by one and bit by bit, the characters relinquish their strength, their car keys, and control of their lives, but they never relinquish their dreams. Those who read “The Swift Seasons” will, ever after, see more than anonymous old age in the faces of the elderly.
2016, Maryben Books, $10.95
ISBN: 978-0991228904
Simply Sanibel Poems
Author: Lorraine Walker Williams,
Reviewed by: Ariel Smart, Santa Clara Branch
Lorraine Walker William’s book, “Simply Sanibel Poems,” captures the poet’s call to nature and evokes the sense of place — Sanibel, Florida. The poems respect the distances between nature in the wild and civilized man, the observer, often with photographic equipment. The mechanics of that equipment paradoxically distances him from the object observed though bringing it closer in view. The poet, and I paraphrase her words, gathers “from bud,” folds close, and holds tight. In so doing, the poet enjoins the natural world and is of it and a part of its essence.
In the poem “Osprey,” about a fish-eating hawk whose plume was once used to trim women’s hats, she pictures the bird with a “jeweled eye.” The image is evocative. Is Williams imagining a red ruby glittering dear and enigmatic? She fancies the movement “of his black-tipped wings” as she catches him in the lens of her camera and then moves to a poetic frame of reference. Her sense of a double view is remarkable.
“The Alligator” is jagged, rhymed, playful, and catchy: “Behold the alligator,
teeth and jaw,
bellow and maw.”
In “Asbury Park,” Williams shows a poignant empathy in her tribute to a willful, misguided Jersey girl who has lost her way:
“O boardwalk baby, you bring out the mama
in me, pushing my first born in a stroller,
his eyes wide as fireworks flare. No one
knew they were close to your last hurrah.”
Lorraine Walker Williams undoubtedly has talent. Her poems demonstrate a skillful use of language and meaningful observations of the natural world and the inhabitants in it. The reader will appreciate these virtues.
2016, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $14
ISBN 978- 1539496113