Coffee House Press

Horse, Flower, Bird: Stories

priyanka — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Full of self-pity and self-loathing, Kate Bernheimer’s stories in Horse, Flower, Bird are not all of what being a girl is about. This is essential to remember, because fairytales, for all their unnecessarily flowery language and lurid fantasy, taught us all who to be. Fairytales, like the more adult fables, are instructional devices; stay away from the woods, do not talk to strangers, truth and love will prevail… As corny as they always are, they imbue us with an elementary moral compass. It was their function and their rationale, it is why parents allow their children to watch Sleeping Beauty a million times into the wee hours of the night. However Bertheimer's fairytales, while unconventional and enticing, do not convey any distinct moral messages. They are enchanting stories, but not fairytales; there is nothing to be learned from them. They are simply fantastical.

Each story reveals a different experience of the world. They convey a distinct approach to, and perception of, reality. One from the point of view of an autistic person, for example, another from that of a tulip bulb. Each of the central characters is distinguishably female, not only by the pronouns used but by the point of view on the universe—as a sister or daughter.

The experiences of the characters are amplified by the subtle touch of the Southern Gothic Bertheimer infuses into her tales: The ironic views of the love/hate relationship between sisters related in “A Star Wars Tale”, the sardonic liberation of the exotic dancer in “A Cageling Tale” and the supernaturally natural reality of autism in “A Garibaldi Tale.” It is worth remembering, however, in drawing the comparison, that Southern Gothic writings were often unforgiving of the women they portrayed.

Thinking of the Fall of the House of Usher, womanhood is not a flattering state of affairs; Berthimer's characters are perhaps closer to the women of The Glass Menagerie in character—not malicious but pitiable, and in this case pitied even by the author. You would not care to be in any of these stories, and worse, you do not learn from them as from their ostensible peers in either genre associated with them. They are well written little pieces, but they leave you reaching for Poe or the Brothers Grimm instead.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, October 22nd 2010

Dear Sandy, Hello: Letters from Ted to Sandy Berrigan

brittany — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Ted Berrigan, Sandy Berrigan, Ron Padgett

Coffee House Press

With the post office on the verge of collapse and Facebook statuses eclipsing emails (which not so long ago eclipsed snail mail), I fret for the future of love letters. Decades from now, letters that would have been discovered in a forgotten old box will instead wither away into password-protected oblivion. We will no longer indulge our imagination in the real-life lust and longing of by-gone days, at least not in their raw, unadulterated letter form.

Dear Sandy, Hello is a relic of that (not-so-distant) past when lovers put pen to paper (or typewriter) to express their affections. In this case, it’s a book full of Ted Berrigan’s daily missives on love, life, and literature to his wife and muse, Sandy Berrigan.

Dear Sandy, Hello is also a testament to the (also not-so-distant) past when a woman’s sanity was regarded in direct proportion to her obedience. Just days after Sandy’s marriage to Ted, a struggling-artist-cum-gifted-poet, she is forced by her parents to enter a mental hospital on the basis that “on the date of the marriage she was deprived of reason and incapable of exercising rational judgment.”

It was the uncomfortable awareness that it was a mere thirty-something years ago when a woman could be institutionalized for marrying the man of her choosing, alongside my fascination with the dying art of letter writing, that drew me to Dear Sandy, Hello.

The book opens with a telegraph dated February 13, 1962 from Ted to his friend Joe Brainard: “I was married today at two o’clock in the afternoon to Sandy Alper of Miami Florida. She is nineteen. I am twenty-seven.” A letter addressed to “My darling Sandy” immediately follows—and there begins three months worth of “Letters from Ted.”

For those who do not know Ted Berrigan, as I didn’t before reading this book, he is a prominent figure in the New York School of Poets. That is, he is the poet equivalent of a Jackson Pollack. He is most widely known for a collection of poems called The Sonnets.

His letters document the emotional ups and downs of two lovers torn apart in the height of their lust. As days pass, Ted shifts from zen-like compassion, insisting “that even those who seem to be hurting you love you... that is why I can bear them no malice,” to unforgiving, cold fury. Although written in reference to the specific injustices of their separation, the letters persuasively and poetically articulate a more general struggle against the majority that is hostile to the unconventional. Ted likens himself to Henry Miller and others—artists who resist comfort to be more alive and who ultimately are the “true prophets of the future.”

“Sandy’s Letters to Ted”—amounting to forty pages as opposed to his 200—only appear, incongruously and as though an afterthought, at the end. I read Ted’s letters with a nagging sense that I was missing something, and in the end I wished it’d been left that way. The Sandy of my imagination was more nuanced and intriguing than the woman captured in a few scant letters.

Whether professing his undying love, railing against society, or recounting the most recent book/museum/poetry that he’d explored, Ted’s letters flow as poems do—a web of vivid imagery and thoughts, impressions superseding logic. Taken as I was by the writing, ultimately I couldn’t stomach his artistic hubris overshadowing her injustice.

Written by: Alicia Simoni, October 11th 2010

Shoulder Season

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Ange Mlinko

Coffee House Press

I’ve often wondered how much it really matters if the reader “gets” what the poet means in some of the more cryptic or shall we say intricately wrought poetry out there, or can a poem itself act as an agent of transformation, imparting unique meaning to both the poet and the reader?

This question popped its head up as I read Shoulder Season by poet Ange Mlinko. I hadn’t heard of this author of two other award-winning collections of poetry prior to this review assignment and had no expectations other than those the title inspired—would this be a series of bucolic or naturalist poems? Or perhaps a deeper metaphor was being referenced, something about transition and possibility? I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Customarily I read poetry collections cover to cover like a magazine—I’m interested in the credits and the colophon, and I look upon the table of contents like a sort of summary poem for the collection. Shoulder Season's table of contents had me instantly intrigued with titles like “The Eros of Nothing,” “Gallimaufry,” “X’D the Go Go,” “Sycorax,” and “Rocamadour.”

There’s a meditative quality to Mlinko’s poetry; it’s an invitation to slow down and let the edges blur a little bit. Many of the poems in Shoulder Season read like dream sequences. In “Rocamadour” this is especially so:

O because one is never là-bas for long, holding an infant is like going to Paris.

...And there I was in the Latin Quarter, cathedrals propped like viola de gambas. “Tariq, do you hear the peacock?”

The poems are intricate and subtle in their meaning, musical with a finely orchestrated cadence and the occasional rhyme. There’s humor and immensely imaginative imagery and metaphor throughout. For example in “Win-Win”:

If an orchidophage’s tastebud mangnified resembles an orchid So my buds indubitably mimic pricking ice cream cones.

To most fully appreciate, these poems take time to absorb. I found myself returning to read the collection in the dark, quiet hours of the day, eager to let go of the more conventional orderliness of my mind and sink into the world poetic. With each reading I was drawn into a clever and inspired perception, into a world perhaps defined by poetry like this, poetry whose greatest merit may be in its ability to touch poet and reader uniquely, but with equivalent power.

Written by: Matsya Siosal, July 10th 2010

Find the Girl: Poems

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Lightsey Darst

Coffee House Press

Lightsey Darst’s first book of poetry, Find the Girl, offers a haunting look into the world of womanhood. She explores the missing and the murdered, the tragic (Helen of Troy, Atlantis), and the everyday girl who is discovering herself.

A number of Darst’s poems contain a true-crime slant, which I thoroughly enjoyed. In “Mary, Annie, Liz, Kate, Mary”—which are the names of Jack the Ripper’s victims—we are left to wonder “Whatever / became of the others.” The poem opens with “You left us nothing but names and dead faces, / the names men called you, faces / twisting away.” This stanza reveals how the victims in the Ripper case are usually treated—as unfortunate unknowns. But Darst gives us visuals of these women beyond the gruesome and grainy crime-scene photos. She describes their attire (“blue-trimmed coat” and “jay-feather hat”), and the fateful moments that led to their murders—“You followed a red trail to a narrow door.”

“JonBenet” not only explores the infamous unsolved case, but also relates back to the book’s title. “You didn’t want to be the girl anymore, wanted / to grow up, be what comes next, the lion” and “A girl is a woman / is a rack to be hung with gashed sky” are two examples of this quest for finding the girl—literally and figuratively—and understanding what it means to be female.

Find the Girl also examines sexuality, especially in its early, blossoming form. “A few things I learned about sex ed,” explores the puberty years: “Some girls had come in busty and without a chance. / We all had cravings, fingers, throbbing to music. / Then I didn’t know it was sex, would deny / when boyfriends asked me.” In “what’s the worst that can happen,” a girl grapples with sexuality and being called a slut, while in “House” a girl tries to understand rape. The girl asks “why / is it my part to allow / to have it in me / & open that store to others.”

Darst experiments with atypical forms in her poems, which sometimes adds ambiguity and causes disconnect. This detachment generally strengthens her poems and gives certain themes a more haunting quality. For instance, in “Didn’t you hear,” the reader gathers bits of information about a girl who went missing and her unknown abductor. We learn “in his cellar, above blackberry jelly, the highest jars / are flush with shorn-off women’s hair. (‘he eats them’).”

Overall, Find the Girl is a unique and dynamic collection of poetry. As we try to understand what it means to be female, we get to peer into the world of other girls, be them famous or average.

Written by: Michelle Tooker, June 15th 2010

Catch Light

admin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Sarah O'Brien

Coffee House Press

When I flipped over to the back cover of Sarah O’Brien’s recent collection of poetry, Catch Light, it was both startling and encouraging to see the resemblance. I was originally interested in reviewing the publication because it entailed reading beautiful writing about photography, two of my lifelong passions; however, only after holding the book in my hands and reading the biography excerpt on the back did I notice that she was a recent graduate from Brown University. A brunette woman, with bangs and a nose ring, who has traveled and lived internationally and works as a writer and photographer, I felt like I was looking at myself (hopefully) in ten years.

As I read through O'Brien's poems in one of my favorite coffee spots, I could imagine her sitting through my photography studio critiques, much more eloquently discussing the displayed photographs: the lighting, captions, titles, and content. Her collection of poetry, a National Poetry Series Winner, chosen by David Shapiro, ranges from descriptions of the history of photography and technology to a critique of light, space, captions, and how images are used and discussed as visual narratives.

O'Brien explains in an interview, “I was reading all of these manuals—how to build a darkroom, how to develop a photograph—and it only seemed natural to start writing my own... because of the inherent poetic opportunity in the images associated with photography.” Her brilliantly written poems all join together in a beautiful unity, exploring the limits and power of imagination, perception, memory, and reality, most importantly in relation to the human experience of light.

Raised on a farm in Ohio, O’Brien has since lived in Cape Town, Paris, and various locations across the United States. She got her B.A. in Comparative Literature at Brown, where she translated Ryoko Sekiguchi’s Heliotropes for her thesis, followed by a MFA in poetry at Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop. She now works as a photographer for The Daily Iowan.

Written by: Abigail Chance, February 28th 2010

German for Travelers : A Novel in 95 Lessons

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:42:00 +0000

By Norah Labiner

Coffee House Press

Norah Labiner's third novel German for Travelers reads a lot more like poetry than prose. Each chapter, which is framed as a lesson, begins with a seemingly disconnected sentence translated into English from German, before jumping to a different time period, country, character, or all three. Though a somewhat dizzying read, German for Travelers is a unique family history told through a gradual unraveling of a long kept family secret. It might also be described as a nonfiction mystery novel—à la Truman Capote—that takes as a starting point Sigmund Freud's famous (and, from a feminist perspective, rather notorious) Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria.

The novel’s narrative(s) center on the Leopold/Berlin family who are descendants of a renowned Jewish German psychoanalyst, Franz Apfel. It begins besides Lemon Leopold's pool in her Hollywood mansion, year 2000-something. Lemon is a famous Hollywood actress; her brother Ben a frustrated psychoanalyst. Their cousin, Eliza Berlin is a gloomy romance writer who, unlike Lemon, has had a lot of "rotten luck". Lemon and Eliza, in fact, are opposites in almost every way. If they weren't cousins, they would no doubt never cross paths, but as can only happen with family, the unlikely pair travel together to Berlin to unravel the unsolved case of "Elsa Z"—their great-grandfather's incurable patient.

In some ways, German for Travelers is a critique of Freud's Dora, and perhaps of the limits of psychoanalysis in that, in Elsa's case, the doctor never discovers the obvious (and ruinous, for him) truth about Elsa until it is too late. Elsa is also turned into a somewhat prophet of the approaching Holocaust (although I actually found this aspect of Elsa's character a little hard to swallow). It is successful, I think, in highlighting some of the misogyny and homophobia of Freud's incomplete analysis of Dora—but the novel is too short, and there is too much going on in it, to form a sustained and coherent critique.

It’s Labiner's characters who manage to stay with the reader by the time the book spirals to its end. I found the dark, world-weary romance writer Eliza and her deceased husband Hans two of the most compelling characters in the novel. Hans is portrayed as a haunted, tragic, yet romantic character—though we are never quite sure if we are seeing him through the narrator (who is constantly shifting) or Eliza's point of view. For example:

He lamented: Time is the fire in which we burn. He pronounced: Every man his own football! He railed: I think of Germany at night: the thought keeps me awake till light. Once as he and Eliza rushed through a station to catch a departing train—he made it onto the platform first—and he called out to her: Run, comrade, run; the world is behind you. (Lesson 13)

I was, at first, somewhat frustrated with the chapters given to the Hollywood-dwelling siblings, Lemon and Ben Leopold, but I came to feel that there was a lot of truth to the characterization of these two somewhat superficial personalities who nevertheless are respectively intrigued and haunted by their family's past. Lemon and Ben's parents were (publicly) an image of the sugar-coated all-American family; one, however, that is hiding a few scandalous secrets. Lemon, Ben and Eliza's grandparents were Holocaust survivors who, as is often the case with many Holocaust survivors of that generation, (and in fact survivors of such traumas in general) never seemed to speak about their pasts. Their grandfather, in fact, after the war, is supposed to have lost his mind, and hence rendered voiceless. I found the way the novel touched on the trans-generational effects of trauma, and the effects of the repression of family history, quite touchingly and intelligently portrayed.

My one reserve is that there is so much going on in so few pages that, at its close, it feels somewhat unfinished. It is a part-critique, part-novel, part-history that can barely hold its characters bursting with personality, its references to pop culture and pop psychology, and its weighty themes. However, I also think this is part of the charm of this book: it leaves the reader thinking and, given its digestible size, this might be the kind of book that deserves a repeated reading—or perhaps, given the book's brevity of words, weighty themes, and lingering phrases, it is, as I first suggested, better read as a poem than novel.

Written by: Rachel Liebhaber, November 17th 2009

All Fall Down

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:14:00 +0000

By Mary Caponegro

Coffee House Press

The topical variety of the stories contained in Mary Caponegro’s All Fall Down is close to astounding. Her protagonists are women, men, and children. Her stories consider poesy, abortion, marriage, chronic illness, terrorism, pregnancy, lesbianism, and international travel—all with grace and interest and without a hitch. The sheer unpredictability of her subject matter adds excitement to the reading of her new collection: the previous story has no bearing on the next and tends, in fact, to make its plot even more startling than they would already be. Occasionally, though, the plotlines are so bizarre that they would stand out in any collection. This is the case with the extraordinarily intriguing, though not entirely successful, “Junior Achievement,” in which the young children of murdered abortionists attempt to take over their parents’ practice. In All Fall Down, very few practical links exist between a character in one story and in another, which is a substantive asset in a writer of short stories.

In tone, however, the stories in All Fall Down are almost infuriatingly uniform. Caponegro’s voice as a writer is intensely verbose, dramatic, and literary, and she varies little from tale to tale or character to character, with the notable exception of “Junior Achievement,” a surreal story told almost entirely in dialogue. The uniformity is particularly noticeable in “Ill-Timed,” in which both over-educated athlete Alex and her wry, awkward lover Paula speak and think in a manner exaggeratedly articulate, stylized, and uniform. Ultimately, it does Caponegro’s final story, “The Translator,” a great disservice, as its narrator’s high-minded, poetic turns of phrase would likely stand out more for their artistry in a collection not so steeped in overly dramatic prose.

Caponegro is clearly an original and fascinating thinker. In several of the stories, the specificity of her characterizations overrides the annoyance one often feels at a piece attempting to cover too many issues. This feat is particularly notable in the stories “Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down” and “Ill-Timed.” However, Caponegro has not yet made the final link between her prose style and her style of thought. Unable to vary the one according to the fluctuations in the other, this oversight often made it difficult to focus on the emotional content—and power—of her work.

Written by: Gemma Cooper-Novack, October 22nd 2009

Fugue State

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:44:00 +0000

By Brian Evenson

Coffee House Press

The Library of Congress’ perfunctory “Cataloging-in-Publication Data” (printed on the verso of the title page) rarely has anything novel or even in the least bit helpful to contribute to the discussion. However, in the case of Fugue State, a collection of stories by Brian Evenson, the dissembled “data” contains a single bit of notable information. Fugue State, the Library-of-Congress proclaims, belongs in the category of “psychological fiction, American.”

The collection of stories gathered in Fugue State is representative of the best and the worst of what may be considered "psychological fiction". Some stories careen in Southern Gothic sensibilities, causing you to seethe as you read, in the way only the best can. Others have an appeal more reminiscent of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, which is unsettling in a very different yet distinct way. In one story, a woman glibly sleeps with a mime, who never speaks, pretends to be in an invisible box all the while, and then replaces it over her as he leaves her bed. The woman as a result, is unable to sleep thereafter, becoming increasingly taciturn. The box remained my bedmate as well for several nights.

Other stories fall flat. Making little, if any, sense on their own, and even less in the rich context of the other stories assembled in this collection, several of the stories are aberrant. The only way in which one can conceive of their belonging is that these stories, in fact, cause you to scratch your head. Perhaps the psychological undercurrents flow so deep and are so subtle in these stories that in a preliminary reading they were overlooked—on second review, perhaps not.

Evenson, in something of a departure from psychological fiction, casts the women in his stories in the role of victim. Even as villains the women are victims as the plots turn this way and that. One can imagine the little girls in plaits and pink and the women similarly from central casting. Evenson is sympathetic, yet many of his characters radiate a naïveté about women that give away the fact that they were written by a man.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, October 8th 2009

The Hebrew Tutor of Bel-Air

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:38:00 +0000

By Allan Appel

Coffee House Press

The back copy for The Hebrew Tutor paints a picture that is enticing:

Under threat of nuclear war and the gorgeous California sun, the two [Norman and Bayla] forge a tentative truce. They may not be learning Hebrew, but through the miracle of motorcycles and the epiphanies of the road, Bayla and Norman just might learn to shape their own destinies. And—for a few precious hours—become a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde searching for a reverse Jewish nose job in the City of Angels.

This paragraph implies that we will spend quite a bit of time with "the two," Norman the Hebrew tutor and Bayla the tutored. It implies that this time will be full of adventure, riding motorcycles, under threat from things unseen, playing at Bonnie and Clyde. It suggests a cheeky 'eff you' to Hollywood dogma. All of this happens... but it doesn't receive the focus the copy suggests.

The majority of the book focuses on Norman alone. He is seventeen, and turning into quite the Hebrew scholar, yet he doesn't feel a strong spiritual connection with his studies. His student is impossible—she wants nothing to do with this Bat Mitzvah stuff. Rather than fight her, Norman sits back passively and lets Bayla waste their time. He observes the goings-on at Bayla's, contrasts their rich lifestyle with his family's poverty, and feels shame. Still, he does very little.

Things and people happen to Norman; he does not effect change on his own. As such, the book is fairly slow, trapped in the tutor's head. His thoughts are interesting, but not really enough to sustain the bulk of a novel.

It isn't until the very last that Bayla takes control and the promised motorcycle escapade—full of unexpected twists—happens. Even here the pacing is strange, with several very important days condensed to a few dozen pages. I devoured that part and then wondered why it was so short.

Appel has provided plenty of material for a longer, more immersive discussion of many topics. The setting alone is interesting: A Jewish community in 1960’s Los Angeles, with the Cold War looming. The romantic and married relationships in the book are all less than healthy. Norman's father is a chronic gambler. What is it about Jewish nose jobs? And what sparks Bayla to go looking for a reversal when her own nose is already petite? Perhaps most interesting to feminists: how can Bayla's parents even joke about marrying her off to 'keep her under control?”

The Hebrew Tutor is poorly proportioned, spending too much time following Norman's passive ambling and not enough examination of what happens around him. That said, I like the initial idea behind The Hebrew Tutor, and I like the look of Appel's other books, which also deal with religion in a modern context. I'd like to pick them up and see how they compare.

Written by: Richenda Gould, August 27th 2009

A Toast in the House of Friends

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:50:00 +0000

By Akilah Oliver

Coffee House Press

Oliver’s collection of poetry is a haunting tribute to her son’s death. However, the collection itself has a universal theme, relatable to readers who haven’t experienced the same loss. Oliver creatively uses words and structure to create her own expression. The book is a collection of poetry in varying lengths and poetic pattern, thus keeping a good flow, as well as engaging. Some of the poems, like "hyena (an absolution chant for the beloved community)," uses a chant-like repetition, given additional power to the words. Other poems have words broken up into non-traditional stanzas; while visually beautiful, those who have not read much poetry previously may have difficulty following.

One poem in particular is deeply touching—a letter written to her departed son. Dated two months and five days after his death, it touches upon the emptiness left that she must deal with. Oliver writes about how her perception has changed over that time, and not being able to greet him when he walks in the door. There is also regret for the way he died and the daily pain that she feels. When reading this piece, anyone who has ever dealt with loss can relate and sympathize with Oliver while she grieves.

In addition, Oliver provided examples of graffiti, which was her son’s art form. She gives five examples, tracing through her own education of graffiti, its definition, and its meaning. Besides these visuals, Oliver also has a black and white hollowed image with poetry written on top, which precedes the graffiti. The introduction and mixture of poetry and pictures further strengthens the emotional pull. Not only does the reader feel Oliver’s sorrow, but is also introduced into his world. This further allows the reader to connect with the poetry, and read into it on a deeper level.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, May 14th 2009

Broken World

admin — Fri, 25 May 2007 13:40:00 +0000

By Joseph Lease

Coffee House Press

Don’t be fooled by the title of Joseph Lease’s collection of poems, though the world may be “broken,” the collection spends its time rebuilding, rationalizing and living despite it. Repetition fuels the elegy, “Broken World (for James Assatly),” a poem built in sections, a poem that works to remember a friend and writer who died of AIDS. The poem’s repetition is representative of how the collection operates: poems announce what things are not, only to reconstruct the world with its pieces. So, in the elegy, Lease repeats what things “won’t be”:

won’t be stronger. won’t be water. / won’t be dancing or floating berries. / won’t be a year. Won’t be a song. / Won’t be taller. Won’t be accounted / a flame. Won’t be a boy. Won’t be / any relation to the famous rebel.

The repetition - such as the repetition in Gertrude Stein’s pieces in Tender Buttons - creates a plain where things will be, where the poem allows for things to be stronger, a song, and taller. The other statement Lease repeats is “and I shatter / everyone who hates you.” The poem shatters not only homophobia, not only the loss of another person to AIDS, but shatters Assatly’s anonymity. In the back of the book, it’s stated that Assatly’s novel Hejira remains unpublished; these poems provide a space to praise Assatly.

The last poem of the collection exists in sections, each titled, “Free Again.” Through the use of space play and his use of the dash, Lease allows the reader to link associations, and to continue the thought. In this poem, Lease is offering a freedom of language and a freedom to make associations. Again, his use of negation offers the reverse. He may write, “... – there are no symbols, no spells –...” but the poetry collection is full of symbols and links of image, statement, and sound. The collection ends with the lines: “I can remember my secret book – / I was a ghost, you were the only one / who could hear me –.” By ending the book with not only the second person address to the reader, but with the dash, extends the conversation past the confines of the page. Lease’s space play, elliptical poems and second person address causes the reader to engage and read in a new way.

Written by: Lisa Bower, May 25th 2007