David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 204

Poignantly brings the past alive

Pray No More by Patrick Bradley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This historical novel poignantly describes a family facing terrible losses before modern medicine reduced childhood diseases. The parents face spiritual crises along with challenges to their relationship as they face together and separately the slow destruction of their family. Patrick Bradley has done excellent research into his family's history and the history of Michigan about 100 years ago, and his writing brings to life what seems like the distant past---but in reality is faced by countless poor families around the globe today.

View all my reviews

"Perfumes of Abandonment" published in Artemis XXII 2015

Ah too many Ahs. O too many Os

Hymen by H.D.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I do like H.D., but not this collection. The writing is derivative of Keats and the Romantics at their gushingest. The classical references and dramatic monologues of mythical figures do nothing new. And every poet should be allowed only one "ah" and one "O" in their careers. H.D. uses up a century's worth here.

View all my reviews

Buddhist Poetry Review will be publishing 3 of my poems

Buddhist Poetry Review will be publishing 3 of my poems in their May 2015 online edition.
http://ow.ly/MsiAe ‪#‎yam‬ ‪#‎dreamsofwolves‬

David Sam's Reviews > New and Selected Poems: Mary Oliver

New and Selected Poems: Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy, and all the tricks my body knows— the opposable thumbs, the kneecaps, and the mind clicking and clicking— don’t seem enough to carry me through this world and I think: how I would like to have wings"

So writes Mary Oliver in one of the first poems of this collection---and throughout she exposes her confrontation with mortality and her and our earthbound nature.

Selected in reverse chronological order, the poems show the growth of the poet over three decades. He language is vivid and her poetic seeing often surprisingly exact:

"the black snake jellies forward"

"and the birds, in the endless waterfalls of the trees"

She loves life, loves nature, with the passion of one who knows mortality in the flight of an owl's hunger. Spend some time with this poet and the wonderful words she leaves behind for us to follow, like a trail through the forest.

View all my reviews

One of my favorite Dickinson poems

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)BY EMILY DICKINSON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -That perches in the soul -And sings the tune without the words -And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -And sore must be the storm -That could abash the little BirdThat kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -And on the strangest Sea -Yet - never - in Extremity,It asked a crumb - of me.

A lovely collection

Lantern Puzzle by Ye Chun
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ye Chun paints her poetry in an English that refers both to her life and family history in China and also to the pictorial language of that land. She weaves the personal, the political, and the natural in a fabric that speaks quietly but profoundly. Nowhere do I read or hear a misstep, just the ebb and flow of the river of her experience.

View all my reviews

Journals recently publishing my poetry

In the last 12 months, the following journals have accepted my poetry for publication:

“This Weaving” Summerset Review, Summer 2014
“Eden” Literature Today, Fall 2014
“Bad Dreams” The Birds We Piled Loosely Fall 2014
“Betrayals” The Write Place at the Write Time Fall 2014
“Above Emile Creek” FLARE: The Flagler Review Fall 2014
 “Ex-voto” The Crucible December 2014
“Murder in the Garden” Literature Today, Winter 2014-15
“Fire, Food, Metal" Carbon Culture Review Feb. 2015
"The Diversity of Habitable Zones"  Carbon Culture Review Feb. 2015
“Flowing into the Adjacent Possible” The Scapegoat Review Spring 2015
"As Tart Cherries Are Still Sweet" The Scapegoat Review Fall 2015
"Geology of The Blue Ridge" The Scapegoat Review Fall 2015
“Stars, Drought, and Adam” On the Rusk Issue 7
“Harpies” Hound
“Treehouse Summer” From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press)
“The Difficulty of Morning” Heron Tree online and September 2015 print
“Remnant” American Tanka

I thank them all and encourage readers to seek them out.

A Fascinating Look at One Poet Reading Another

My Emily Dickinson by Susan Howe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Howe's short book is an illuminating take on one of my favorite poets, focusing in particular on a careful reading of "My Life Stood---a Loaded Gun." Howe does an excellent job of showing the poetic and other influences on Dickinson, especially the Brownings, Shakespeare (King Lear in particular), Fenimore Cooper, and Jonathan Edwards. Sometimes, Howe lets her own poetic rhetoric carry her away into near intelligibility, but I simply take that as her excitement and appreciation for what Dickinson was able to do. If you appreciate Dickinson, give this a read. If you are not sure, definitely read this work of one poet reading another.

View all my reviews

Still a Classic

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those novels I was supposed to read as a youth, but never got around to it. In this case, the consensus is right. Mockingbird Courageously looks at the Jim Crow South and the damage it did to white and black citizens alike. Told from the viewpoint of a precocious girl who has a strong sense of right and wrong, it is reminiscent of Hucklebery Finn in that Lee like Twain uses the innocence of a child to skewer an adult society built on racism and classism, and the adults who sustain it. The characters are alive and real, and the story is exciting even though I have seen the movie and knew what was coming. Now that I have read it once, I imagine Mockingbird will reward my rereading.

View all my reviews