Member Janice Northerns shares her reviews on Goodreads and has given us permission to share them here! Thank you, Janice, for making the time to share the books you love.
In KANSAS POEMS, Brian Daldorph evokes the moods, the places, and the seasons of his adopted home state. This strong collection was named a finalist for The Birdy Poetry Prize by Meadowlark Books, and reading it is like taking a guided tour through Kansas, both its present and its past. Daldorph often pinpoints a location with a title, such as “Pulpit Rock,” or “Cooper City,” and then paints a portrait of the place, and sometimes its inhabitants. In “Cooper City” we see one of the many small towns in Kansas that has seen better days: “Main Street’s a few hand-me-down stores.” Daldorph’s deft characterizations in poem after poem are sharp in detail but can also be read as types, such as this one in the last stanza of “Cooper City”:
Zeke Haskins, Undertaker,
with old Zeke in the window wondering
days on end if he or Cooper City
will go first.
The many characters that people his narratives remind me of the wonderful SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY by Edgar Lee Masters. Daldorf is even able to do this by writing about what we don’t know, as in “Kansas City Vietnam War Memorial, April 2000.” Here he asks poignant questions about the dead that help us imagine their lives: “What was Felix Pacheco’s agony, / Jack Renfro’s last word [?]” “What happened to / the five Moores?”
Daldorf also tackles his own life in this collection, writing of both love and loss. In one of my favorite poems in the book, “Drought,” he depicts in beautiful but brief description the beginning of rain on drought-stricken country and then surprises us by turning the poem into a metaphor for loss with the last two lines.
I also love the dark, moody “Around Midnight,” where the “Last man walking/ in the sleeping world” describes his longing:
I want it to be jazz
but it’s cicada.
I want it to be poetry
but there are scant words.
I want it to be love
but know I’ll sleep alone.
I am a fan of poetry that evokes longing and loss and several other excellent pieces in this vein are “Mason City, Kansas,” “Empties,” and the book’s closing poem, “Estate Sale” with its lovely, sad last lines:
Outside her house, by 13th Street,
the leftovers of her life:
brass floor lamp, split cushions,
old books and pictures,
we through from last night’s rain.
But KANSAS POEMS is not filled with doom and gloom. Daldorph writes of happier moments and moods in many of the poems, such as “First Date: Oak Hill Cemetery,” “Laurel Avenue,” and “the miracle.” He also gives us a lively series of historical pieces about the paleontologist Handel T. Martin, ending with another of my favorite poems, “Kansas Rhinoceros,” which is packed with vivid descriptions such as these: “you’d been tucked up since the Miocene” …. “Kansas Rhinoceros, broad as wide, / jaw big as a man’s shoulder.” …. “Wooden-hoop ribs stapled / round your empty hogshead belly.” …. and “I stare at your brick-toothed grin.”
Daldorph’s tour through Kansas via his poetry will delight those who live in Kansas, as well as those who’ve never visited the Sunflower state, but this collection is much more than a regional book. At his best, Daldorph writes about what it means to be human, no matter what state we call home.
Zeke Haskins, Undertaker,
with old Zeke in the window wondering
days on end if he or Cooper City
will go first.
The many characters that people his narratives remind me of the wonderful SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY by Edgar Lee Masters. Daldorf is even able to do this by writing about what we don’t know, as in “Kansas City Vietnam War Memorial, April 2000.” Here he asks poignant questions about the dead that help us imagine their lives: “What was Felix Pacheco’s agony, / Jack Renfro’s last word [?]” “What happened to / the five Moores?”
Daldorf also tackles his own life in this collection, writing of both love and loss. In one of my favorite poems in the book, “Drought,” he depicts in beautiful but brief description the beginning of rain on drought-stricken country and then surprises us by turning the poem into a metaphor for loss with the last two lines.
I also love the dark, moody “Around Midnight,” where the “Last man walking/ in the sleeping world” describes his longing:
I want it to be jazz
but it’s cicada.
I want it to be poetry
but there are scant words.
I want it to be love
but know I’ll sleep alone.
I am a fan of poetry that evokes longing and loss and several other excellent pieces in this vein are “Mason City, Kansas,” “Empties,” and the book’s closing poem, “Estate Sale” with its lovely, sad last lines:
Outside her house, by 13th Street,
the leftovers of her life:
brass floor lamp, split cushions,
old books and pictures,
we through from last night’s rain.
But KANSAS POEMS is not filled with doom and gloom. Daldorph writes of happier moments and moods in many of the poems, such as “First Date: Oak Hill Cemetery,” “Laurel Avenue,” and “the miracle.” He also gives us a lively series of historical pieces about the paleontologist Handel T. Martin, ending with another of my favorite poems, “Kansas Rhinoceros,” which is packed with vivid descriptions such as these: “you’d been tucked up since the Miocene” …. “Kansas Rhinoceros, broad as wide, / jaw big as a man’s shoulder.” …. “Wooden-hoop ribs stapled / round your empty hogshead belly.” …. and “I stare at your brick-toothed grin.”
Daldorph’s tour through Kansas via his poetry will delight those who live in Kansas, as well as those who’ve never visited the Sunflower state, but this collection is much more than a regional book. At his best, Daldorph writes about what it means to be human, no matter what state we call home.
A local donor has offered the following challenge to Kansas Authors Club members. Every #ReadLocalKS submission to our website from now through December 1 will be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate to Bookshop.org.
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