Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Poetry    3. Poetry / Single Author / American    4. 20th Century American Poetry    5. American    6. American Contemporary Poetry    7. Lesbians    8. Single Author - American (General)   

Subjects:  1. 1953-1987    2. 20th century    3. American - General    4. American Contemporary Poetry    5. Asian American Poetry    6. Biography    7. Essays    8. Feminists    9. Fukaya, Michiyo,    10. Japanese American women    11. Lesbian Studies    12. Literature - Classics / Criticism    13. Poets, American    14. Social Science    15. Sociology    16. Specific Groups - Lesbians    17. United States    18. Biography & Autobiography    19. English    20. Fukaya, Michiyo    21. USA   

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Reviews (2)

Strike a Pose!
If Sharon Dennis Wyeth's Orphea Proud is any indication of the direction of children's literature, may all kids henceforth be gifted with iPods, Xboxes, and Game Boys, which will undoubtedly require of them more brain cells than this book.At its best, Orphea Proud is an affront to both creative writing and the art of storytelling with its faux sincerity and patronizing passages.At its worst, it is filled with candy coated scenarios, resulting in one hundred and eighty-nine pages of potential energy that never turns kinetic.Its "life is a box full of chocolates" type of philosophy is pure fantasy, even for its intended teen audience.And its trite and cliche-filled poetry is so painful that it likens itself to nails on a chalkboard.Nothing is explored in this book, no lessons learned.Wyeth is so preoccupied with turning out a crowd pleasing novel that she seems to have forgotten the definition of the word sincerity.This book, about a girl on a path to self-discovery, is uneven and dull in its execution (it involves making the reader a part of a live audience), and features characters, including the narrator, that are drawn so thin they will remind one of the cardboard cut-outs used in place of real people in kindergarten plays.

Doesn't live up to its potential
I really, *really* wanted to like this book. It was set up like an open mic show, with a teenage girl telling the story of how she came to terms with her sexuality through narrative and poetry. She was black and her lover was white, so there was also a race dynamic in there. I'm interested in sexuality issues and racial issues and young adult novels written in creative ways, so I was super excited to read this.
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Subjects:  1. Artists    2. Children's 12-Up - Fiction - General    3. Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction    4. Children: Young Adult (Gr. 10-12)    5. Family life    6. Fiction    7. Juvenile Fiction    8. Lesbians    9. Poetry    10. Social Issues - General    11. Social Issues - Homosexuality    12. Social Issues - Prejudice & Racism    13. Social Situations - General    14. Juvenile Fiction / General   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. American poetry    3. Gay & Lesbian    4. History    5. History and criticism    6. Lesbians' writings, American    7. Literary Criticism    8. Literature - Classics / Criticism    9. Poetry    10. United States    11. Women and literature    12. Women authors    13. "Gertrude Stein; Elizabeth Bishop; Adrienne Rich; twentieth-century lesbian poets; themes of love, war, and place"    14. American English    15. English    16. Lesbian studies    17. Literary Criticism & Collections / Women Authors    18. Poetry & poets: from c 1900 -    19. USA   

Reviews (3)

broth for the modern soul
This is simply a swell collections of poems.Some are sweet, others painful.All are provoking.

The Heartbeat of a Lover's Soul
June Jordan's poetry beats furiously in the name of love: for Haruko, for life, for real.Since the human language is inadequate to truly express this emotion, Jordan manipulates and bends the written word to fit thehuman heart.When she describes love as "yes directed by desire"("When I or Else"), she speaks the living truth. This book is damn good.
This book is blood, sweat and tears. It is the sweet succulence of love. Her poetry is bitter and rich. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. African Americans    2. American - General    3. Asian Americans    4. General    5. Jordan, June - Poems & Criticism    6. Lesbians    7. Love poetry, American    8. Poetry    9. Poetry / General    10. Works by individual poets: from c 1900 -   

Reviews (4)

Bodies of Absence
In the poem "Exile", Rodriguez writes "After a while you begin to feel intimate with the missing part. You begin to feel it's natural not to feel pleased or satisfied. You look for houses in dead ends to live in." It is from this restlessness, this intimacy with the missing part that Rodriguez writes. She gives voice to the self that is warped through exile, that falls prey at times to fatalism, and at other times to nostalgia, while remaining self-conscious enough to avoid these pratfalls herself.
exiled into eden
Perhaps unfairly, I immediately thought of Nabokov when reading Garden of Exile for several reasons.Here we find synesthesia, visual precision, and poems of Cuba, the near-mythical land she can never return to (even while seeking refuge in it), like Nabokov's Russia: half-remembered, half-invented, still and forever lost.
Morning in the garden
Aleida Rodriguez's "Garden of Exile" is an exposition of craft, from rigorously end-rhymed forms such as sestinas and sonnets to ambling meditations on identity, culture, friendship, womanhood, painting, and sex. Her voice is so settled and sure that this collection doesn't come across as a first book, or perhaps does so only in the relatively uncomplicated style of composition. Many of the poems are narrative - the "Cuentos de Cuba" section most notably, and most autobiographical - yet relaxed, the poetry resting more in verbal music than image or lyric transposition. It lends a very inviting quality to the whole enterprise, as though in reading one were simply sitting down to morning coffee in Rodriguez's garden and listening to her recount her days.
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Subjects:  1. American - General    2. American Contemporary Poetry    3. Europe - Spain & Portugal    4. General    5. Lesbian    6. Poetry    7. Poetry / General   

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Canadian literature    3. Japanese authors    4. Lesbians    5. Lesbians' writings, Canadian    6. Literary collections    7. Poetry   

Reviews (1)

WONDERFUL
THIS BOOK WAS ALONG THE SAME LINE AS OTHER ROBBI SOMMERS BOOKS. WONDERFUL IMAGES. WORTH READING! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. American Contemporary Poetry    3. Fiction    4. Fiction - General    5. Lesbian    6. Poetry    7. Sexuality In Literature    8. English    9. Literature of special Lesbian interest    10. Modern fiction    11. USA   

Reviews (2)

Birtha's poetry is straightforward, subtle, beautiful, real
The poems in this book touch me most when I'm grieving; they are tender yet strong, and in them I find both recognition of pain and courage to begin again. They are vulnerable yet far from sappy; Birtha's insight, power, and gentleness never fail to comfort and strengthen. I recommend this book highly

Say it isn't so!! Keep Looking, you won't be sorry ...
This book belongs on every reader's list of gotta have.Becky Birtha pulls us thru her journey of life -- from loving, to heartache, around the corner to recovery, we find community, friendship and then stand with her in all her glory as she shares her Love Poem to Myself.You'll lick your lips sensually with Plumstone; laugh and nod your head as she wraps humor around pain in My Next Lover; feel strength with her Love Poem to Anger; soothed with A Deeper Healing and Accept it Gracefully.She shows us how it feels *to come to the end of being loved* and how we can still be open, strong and willing to take the risk again.The language BB uses to paint her gifts is magical.This is an absolutely must own!! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. American Contemporary Poetry    3. Lesbians    4. Poetry    5. Black studies    6. English    7. USA    8. Works by individual poets: from c 1900 -   

Subjects:  1. American    2. Lesbians    3. Poetry    4. Unassigned Title    5. American English    6. Poetry texts & anthologies   

Subjects:  1. Gay Studies    2. Gender Studies    3. General    4. Lesbian Studies    5. Psychology    6. Sexuality    7. Gay & Lesbian studies    8. Poetry texts & anthologies   

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Reviews (1)

Hidden Name Revealed
Her name was forgotten for several decades. During the Soviet era it was unthinkable to mention the name of that close friend of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva, their poetic rival and lover. There is special tenderness and atrait of decadent fragility in her verses, as well as in her life. I likedthe way Diana tells us about Parnok - one see guess that she had the samefeeling and substantially the same life experience. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Criticism and interpretation    3. History    4. History and criticism    5. Lesbianism in literature    6. Lesbians' writings, Russian    7. Literary Criticism    8. Literature - Classics / Criticism    9. Parnok, Sofiia    10. Russia    11. Russian & Former Soviet Union    12. Sexuality    13. Women and literature    14. Biography: general    15. Lesbian studies    16. Poetry & poets: 19th century    17. Poetry & poets: from c 1900 -    18. Russian    19. Works by individual poets: 19th century    20. Works by individual poets: from c 1900 -   

Editorial Review

Editor Gerry Gomez Pearlberg argues that dogs are a queer's best friend. This collection of gayand lesbian authors' writing about their dogs includes noted poets such as W. H. Auden, Bernard Cooper,Mark Doty, Melinda Goodman, James Schuyler, Linda Smukler, and Gertrude Stein. Pearlberg maintainsthat gay writers understand their pets better because they are "masters at reconfiguring what it meansto create a family," but whatever the reason, these poems--ranging from witty to elegiac, sexy tosensuous--comprise a fine collection of contemporary gay and lesbian writing that tells us in moving, oftenbrilliant poetry what it is like to live as a gay person today. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Queer canines come out of the doghouse!
I purchased this book for a good friend of mine, a lesbian who loves dogs.I have to admit, with a title like "Queer Dog:Homo/Pup/Poetry," I thought this was a novelty item.But when it arrived, I realized that the calibre of writing was pretty outstanding.Gerry Gomez Pearlberg has edited a really provocative volume of verse including classic poets like Thom Gunn, May Swenson, and Mark Doty, to newer writers such as Lawrence Schimel, Gerard Wozek, Fran Winart and Michael Klein. The writing really makes you look at your dog in a brand new way!From David Levinson's poem "Knowing":My bulldog/He likes long walks/on the beach, a bath on Sunday, scraps/for dinner. And sometimes, a kiss in/the morning after coming home/from roaming the neighborhood. The/spoiled smell of another on his lips.Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. American poetry    3. Anthologies (multiple authors)    4. Dogs    5. Gay/Lesbian Nonfiction    6. Gays' writings, American    7. General    8. Lesbian    9. Lesbian Studies    10. Poetry    11. American English    12. Poetry & poets    13. Poetry anthologies: from c 1900 -   

Subjects:  1. Fiction - General    2. Lesbian    3. Lesbians    4. Poetry    5. Drug abuse    6. Prostitution    7. Physics   

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Lesbian Studies    3. Poetry    4. Social Science    5. Sociology    6. American English    7. Poetry texts & anthologies   

Subjects:  1. General    2. Lesbian Studies    3. Poetry    4. Social Science    5. Sociology    6. Women's Studies - General    7. Fiction / General    8. Modern fiction    9. Myth & legend told as fiction   

Reviews (1)

Political, emotional, romantic
This is a great coffee table book and a great conversation piece.Thepoetry of this book evoked political debate, nostalgic reminiscing, quietreflection and urgent lovemaking all in one package.I look forward tomore works by Ms. Clarke. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. African American lesbians    2. African American women    3. American - General    4. Gay & Lesbian    5. Lesbians    6. Poetry   

Reviews (1)

Song for Mr. Bluebird
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, who won the Lambda Award for her debut collection Marianne Faithfull's Cigarette, follows beautifully with Mr. Bluebird.Whether contemplating the ephemera of pop culture or final things, her poems are born of humor, pain, and an abiding love for language."Death's the unpatented/gizmo built into all real beauty."She speaks with moving authority to us all. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - General    2. Lesbian Studies    3. Poetry   

Subjects:  1. 1869-1928    2. 19th century    3. Biography    4. Biography & Autobiography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh    8. General    9. Great Britain    10. Lesbians    11. Literary    12. Mew, Charlotte Mary,    13. Poets, English