Reviews
Latin Dragon Reviews:
STILLS JOANNE MCFARLAND McFarland, Joanne. STILLS, Acorn Whistle Press, 2000.
Joanne McFarland has done a wonderful job of catching as much as her childhood as she could in a few poems. The title of her work is Stills and her prose is as visual as a still photograph could be. Growing up in the projects, McFarland captures a different side of this cliché ridden lifestyle. With a small family, Joanne shows the love she had for her family, and the bonds she shared with her sister and mother. She hints at a dysfunctional life, although, never dwelling on it. Her father, a lost soul, floated in and out of the poetry like he did her life. Eventually, he died a lonely death on the street, an event McFarland writes in a short haunting poem “Missing Person”. In this work, Joanne writes about an injury her mother sustained on an icy grate, that probably happened the same time her father died somewhere else in the town. A surprising way to bring up a dangerously emotional topic. He was so alone in his death, he was buried in a beggars plot, until further investigation by her mother led to a more “proper” burial. Although only 60 pages, Joanne McFarland gives the reader a summary of her childhood so in depth with emotion and imagery that one can’t help but feel apart of it. The page layout is beautiful, with a minimum of photographs leading into chapters, allowing more room for the imagination to create.
Will's Microbriefs (Hey now!)
Books
As I Lay Dying--Is it just me or are the Bundren's the funniest white trash ever written? They make any other family in American history look healthy and normal. Here's a dark hoot of a novel with an effective shifting first person point of view. A student recently said "Bundrens, don't you mean Bundys." See what you think and remember: "My mother is a fish."
Affinity by Susan Waters--A pseudo-Victorian modern novel set in a woman's prison. The back cover claims it to be sensual and well written. It is neither--just a bore.
Movies and Such
Robotech--The animated epic from the 1980s. A huge soap-opera set in space with lots of dog fights. Fun in a cheesy, melodramatic way. Min Mei, Rick and Lisa just can't figure their emotions out. What's up with that hideous song Min Mei keeps singing? Still, I want a veritech fighter to take on the Zentradai.
Comix
Music