In some way or another, we are all caught in our own modern minutia, marching to the tune of a drum that is beaten for us like eggs in a Sunday scramble. People crave escape. People crave reprieve. People crave a difference in the daily, to either be or see something remarkable, or simply to remark at the unremarkable, and experience joy in a way that can only be described as simple, but special.
John Popielaski’s poetry collection That Special Something is a home-brewed, hand-poured draft, best enjoyed on the porch with the sweet, harmonic melody of nature playing in the background. Popielaski trades the business and bustle of our constructed world for the serene scenes of running water in a stream and the cigar smoke in dive bars; the smell of hops and cracked corn; and the sounds of crickets, American toads, and the holy rise and fall of breathing.
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As the Bard himself once said, “The course of true love never did run smooth,” (AMND, 1.1.136) and that certainly is the case in C.J. Spataro’s debut novel, More Strange Than True, a story of fairy mischief in truly Shakespearean proportions. Instead of existing merely as a retelling of a beloved classic, the novel luxuriates in themes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, expanding on and complicating them and sometimes rejecting them entirely.
Yuvi Zalkow’s second and newest novel, I Only Cry With Emoticons, is a hilarious ride through dealing with human connection in a modern age littered with smartphones, tablets, dating apps, and hashtags. At its core, it’s a story about responsibility. It begs the question, how do we take responsibility for our irresponsible reliance on technology? How do we take responsibility for allowing ourselves to become so disconnected not just with one another, but our own lives?
Each of us finds a way to cope with the hurdles and pain that life throws our way. Some turn towards their work, others to more destructive means. Then, there’s Josh Denslow. In his collection of stories Not Everyone is Special, Denslow covers a range of topics with his characters: from being a child of divorce, to being a survivor in the aftermath of a friends’ suicide, to being a little person in today’s world. His approach is to use humor not only to build up the narrative in each story, but show how people use it as a form of self-preservation and self-defense in ways that are true to real life, even when he is putting a character in a world where people have superpowers like being able to get the wrinkles out of shirts by patting them down with their hands or extending and retracting their facial hair in real time.
Melissa Balmain’s book Walking in on People transfixes readers with the humor of her and her family’s everyday life. The poet's simple language illustrates a play on observation, thought, and vantage point as she tackles marriage, raising children, and pop culture. Delivering lines that are thought provoking and eloquent, she simultaneously keeps the poetry genuine with her direct language. Balmain is boldly “walking in on people” where many choose not to go. This collection shouldn’t, however, be seen as spying, but rather as a different take on the renewal of faith in everyday human nature. The poems in Balmain’s collection have varied subject matter and are intended to be humorous. Readers of more than one personality type should be able to at least smile after entering this poet's world. Because some of the entries are so short, every word has to mean something…and each one does. Walking in on People is constructed in such a way that the poems flow easily from one to the next. It also helps that they are divided into sections so the reader can skip around to the subjects they find more interesting. |
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