POEMS YOU'LL LOVE: A COLLECTION OF LYRIC POEMS AND HAIKU - by SYLVIA SEMEL
Here's a beautiful collection of lyric poems and haiku (142 poems in all) that are easy to read but that have a genuine suggestion and a felt-depth allowing every reader to identify with them. In the introduction, I offer a mini course on lyric poems and
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Cane River - by Lalita Tademy
Lalita Tademy's riveting family saga chronicles four generations of women born into slavery along the Cane River in Louisiana. It is also a tale about the blurring of racial boundaries: great-grandmother Elisabeth notices an unmistakable "bleaching of the line" as first her daughter Suzette, then her granddaughter Philomene, and finally her great-granddaughter Emily choose (or are forcibly persuaded) to bear the illegitimate offspring of the area's white French planters. In many cases these children are loved by their fathers, and their paternity is widely acknowledged. However, neither state law nor local custom allows them to inherit wealth or property, a fact that gives Cane River much of its narrative drive.
The author makes it clear exactly where these prohibitions came from. Plantation society was rigidly hierarchical, after all, particularly on the heels of the Civil War and the economic hardships that came with Reconstruction. The only permissible path upward for h
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Body Surfing: A Novel - by Anita Shreve
The beach house in New Hampshire which figured in Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife, Fortune's Rocks, and Sea Glass is once again featured in Body Surfing. This time, it is the summer home of the Edwards family, Anna and Mark and daughter Julie. Mrs. Edwards has great hopes for Julie, who is "slow," so she hires Sydney to tutor her, in preparation for her senior year. There are two older brothers, Jeff and Ben, whose arrival changes the household dynamic considerably.
Once again, Shreve revisits the minefield of love and betrayal that she has explored so well in her best novels. Sydney is 29, twice married, once divorced, and once a widow. She is floundering, not sure she wants to go back to school, accepting whatever job comes along and then moving on. She answers the ad for a tutor and finds herself in the Edwards household, where she discovers that Julie has undiscovered artistic talent. Mrs. Edwards dislikes her instantly, is dismissive, and