Monday Book Review

Calypso Editions, ever the gracious bestower of books, has given me yet another to sink my teeth into.  Froth: Poems by Jarosław Mikołajewski is a poem anthology of a contemporary Polish poet.  Overall, I really enjoyed the collection.  The introductory description of the book said that it had texture, and the poems really do.  The collection is a feast for the senses--it is sensual and earthy.  The words echo an almost instinctual feeling towards nature, our relationship to it (agriculture), and toiling in the earth.  In many ways, it encapsulates the romanticism of peasant life while cloaking it in metropolitan clothes.  They are the dreams of a city boy recalling his peasant life.  This palpable feeling reminds me of The Horse of Pride by Pierre-Jakez Helias.

Monday Book Review

Calypso Editions has put out a new book this month and I'm reviewing it!  The book is entitled Of Gentle Wolves: An Anthology of Romanian Poetry translated and edited by Martin Woodside.  I've been excitedly waiting for it since I saw it on Calypso's publishing queue and the wait was finally over.  Who said that birthdays come only one a year?  Mine come every time I get a book I'm excited about, meaning I often have a birthday.

I must begin by stating my general unfamiliarity with Romanian poetry.  I'm pretty sure this book was compiled for the new as well as the familiar.  The list of Romanian poets is rather long, but captures a great breadth of style and substance.  In the preface, Mr. Woodside writes,

The poems here present a snapshot of Romanian poetry, one that gestures to a single truth: Romanian poets have been re-inventing poetry for as long as they've been writing it.  And that spirit unifies the poets here, a group of writers from various generations working in various modes who all combine a strong grounding in tradition with the desire to innovate and the will to preserve.

Monday Book Review

I can't believe it's been three weeks since I posted.  The hiatus is over so I'm back and running the blog again.  As usual, I am beginning the week with a book review.

The book being reviewed today is Tolstoy's short story, How Much Land Does A Man Need.  This was another Calypso book that was generously offered to me.  This was the first published book by Calypso and it received rave reviews.  When I was originally contacted, I browsed the reviews linked from their website.  I became curious about this mysterious short story by Tolstoy.  I was a late blooming lover of Russian literature.  It was not until I had read four novels between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky that I appreciated the meticulous layering of the main characters and the novel's inwardly piercing trajectory.  As I had mentioned in another book review post, the concept of "dusha" very clearly explained the plot development of every novel I had read.  The outward events and background were set very carefully and almost excruciatingly in the first and largest portion of the book, but then rapidly zoomed into the interior of the character, where the story exploded with velocity.

Special Book Review

courtesy of Calypso Editions

I am very proud to post this week's book review.  Two weeks ago, I was contacted by Calypso Editions to review their latest publication.  After browsing their website, I enthusiastically said, "YES!" but in a more professional way.  As soon as I read the first paragraph in their "About" section, I couldn't refuse:

Calypso Editions is an artist-run, cooperative press dedicated to publishing quality literary books of poetry and fiction with a global perspective. We believe that literature is essential to building an international community of readers and writers and that books can serve as a physical artifact of beauty and wonder in a world of digital saturation.