New Works Review

The Bag of Broken Glass
Poems by Yerra Sugarman
ISBN 1931357587
180 pages at 13.95 paperback
The Sheep Meadow Press
P.O. Box 1345, Riverdale NY 10471
1931357587 $13.95

Yerra Sugarman is an award-winning poet whose work has been featured in numerous journals and publications. Her work here is reminiscent of an Old Testament psalmist, giving voice to the dark peripheries and wounds of life with lyrical grace and quiet elegance. Through skillful poetic forms and simple words, she creates powerful moments in time. Whether inhabiting the ancient past, detailing a troubling presence, or looking to an unknown future, she speaks with a universal voice.

"Through the Portholes of the Eyes" expresses eloquently the grief and fear of watching her dying mother prepare for the end of life:

In "My Bag of Broken Glass" the poet contemplates Poland of 1939 and Canada in 1978. These two excerpts from that poem reflect the stunning clarity and beauty of Sugarman's memories of fear and death in Poland, love and survival in Canada:

Beneath the blood bitter moments,
are there only blowing voids or brittle essentials?

Words fall like long hairs on her mind's floor.
Images get caught in memory's teeth.

Surgarman entwines an individual sorrow with the universal in "Journal: Rai'ut Coma Ward, Tel Aviv-Yaffo, July 2003." Her mother's youngest sister languishes there in an unconscious state:

To connect the body's pain
with the pain of the body's world
like the hand's double,
its shadow on a leaf
of paper in this coma room's caul of light --

the weeping and the ravaged. History bears you
in its unconsummated peace
where it always stops
and you retreat
from the world not knowing

In "Sacred are the Broken" the poet memorializes the legacy of Ruth Apteker, a half-Jewish, half-German woman whose greatest accomplishments and possessions were resurrected from a dumpster:

The body can die alone on an uptown stoop,
seeking refuge from its bug-filled studio.
And the damned, duplicitous mist
will weave a pall from its once soft cloak.
You see how we're born:
solitary, dying, holy, broken.

And sacred are the broken, the inconstant,
the distracted genius, curmudgeon, refugee,
and the one who would offer an only pair of good shoes to a victim of fire.

Critics have described the poetry in this book as invaluable, extraordinary, eloquent, luminous and masterful. Such praise is understatement. The Bag of Broken Glass has my highest recommendation.

The Pond at Cape May Point
Poems by Burt Kimmelman
Paintings by Fred Caruso
ISBN 978-0-9713332-4-6
105 pages at 12.50 paperback
Marsh Hawk Press
Box 220, Stuyvesant Station
New York NY 10009

Fred Caruso and Burt Kimmelman are two friends who vacation with their families at Cape May Point. Their collaboration on this book, whether it was their intent or not, is a visual and poetic gift to the world.

Through his skill with words, Kimmelman blesses readers with tranquil moments, soothing visions, quiet wonders. Caruso's impressionistic whispers speak of wind, grass, trees, water, and sky. Together,
they've created a placid oasis where readers can escape the chaos of our modern world.

The very simplicity of Kimmelman's poems is reminiscent of ancient Haiku masters. "Afternoon Haze" transports readers to this quiet moment in time:

Sky a single color –
and below, the trees thick
across water and sun –
shoots of bramble springing
up against the mud shore.

Kimmelman doesn't need a surfeit of words to share his peaceful moments. "Morning Pond" calms and soothes in three lines:

Existing around us, everywhere, are primordial miracles. All we have to do is look and we will find "Something" to awe and inspire us:

The slate rock takes in sunlight
in an endless darkness but
for a white cut line across
its base. Something will grow there.

Hummingbirds, swans, sparrows, geese, and egrets co-exist here with humans and trees, sunshine and stars, storms and squalls. Each variation of light and shadow impacts the Cape May existence. Caruso
and Kimmelman have captured this experience beautifully in word and watercolor. For lovers of poetry and art, this book is highly recommended.

A Year and A Day
By Michael Corrigan
ISBN 0-937834-76-9
236 pages at 17.95 paperback + $3 s&h
Idaho State University Press
921 So. 8th Ave, Stop 8265
Pocatello ID 83209

Michael Corrigan personifies the romanticized vision of what an Irishman should be: musical, humorous, a gifted performer and wordsmith, blessed by the blarney stone and the love of his life. The last thing he expected was to lose his adoring wife, an accomplished professional and beautiful compassionate woman whose “bright light was blown out forever.”

When Karen Lea Smith Corrigan died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm in September 2005, life as he knew it ended. The day of her death he prays for lightning to strike and incinerate him. When that relief does not come, he continues as a grieving ghost – stunned, numb, shattered, separated from reality, and alone in his grief. From that awful beginning of life without Karen, he embarks on a year and a day of traditional Irish mourning. His existence without her is all raw nerve endings and aches and pains. Somehow, he survives the early days of her loss. Corrigan returns to teaching at the University. He sees a grief therapist and begins a journal in hopes of helping others cope with such awful loss. With compellng honesty, he questions her death and struggles with memories:

“I wish her soul would return on All Souls Day, or any time. I would tell her I loved her and probably should have said it more often… She often mentioned that others admired her work and I think she expected me to say, ‘Yes, you are the consummate professional.’ I did believe that but never felt the need to say it. She didn't need validation for her gifts, or so I thought. Perhaps that was a mistake. After such sudden death, there is that ‘What if?’ syndrome and the nagging question: Why didn’t I praise her more or tell her the truth – that I worshipped her this side of idolatry?

“If at some time I found the ability to stare into the seeds of time and saw what was about to happen, I would have withheld nothing. Could any intervention have saved her? There is the possibility that Karen’s fatal condition was inevitable … but knowing that any second could be our last together might have shaped how we lived.”

You’ll find no meaningless buzz words here, like “closure” or “healing” and no empty platitudes. Corrigan faces his losses head on and claws his way through because he believes his life with Karen is worth the grief. Each day is a struggle, a battle to celebrate her life and survive her death. This journal is Michael Corrigan's attempt to honor Karen's memory with his honest sharing of grief. Anniversaries, holidays, remembered rituals and joys, pain, regret, and panic are all laid out truthfully in a way he hopes will help others suffering from loss. Highly recommended to all adult readers, especially those reeling from the loss of someone they love.

The Filmmakers
By Michael Corrigan
ISBN 978-1-60264-135-8
180 pages at 13.95 paperback
VBW Publishing
P.O. Box 9949
College Station TX 77842

I like film noir and gritty mysteries, and Michael Corrigan’s latest book reflects the best of both. This is a dark tale that would make an exciting action thriller.

Steven Demko is a long way from northern Canada when he arrives in L.A. via San Francisco. He’s young, attractive, and talented, a hopeful student at the American Film Institute. Felicity Brown makes his stopover in San Francisco memorable for the great sex they share, the cocaine she provides, and her unexpected murder. That murder and the killing in self defense of her hitman sets the tone for Steven’s life from that point on. He has to stay one step ahead of the mobsters responsible for Felicity’s death, not because he killed one of their own, but because he lifted three million dollars of their money from the dead woman's apartment. Life in L.A. is far from glamorous, but pretty women are plentiful and so are the drugs that keep his juices flowing. He plans to produce and direct a film with the mob’s three million dollars, if he lives long enough.

Charismatic characters add interest to the story. Ray West is a screenwriting fellow at A.F.I. who befriends Demko early on and partners with him on a film project. At forty, West is old by L.A. standards. His unfortunate love affair with a dying woman is an intriguing sub plot, as is his struggle to keep Demko clean and sober. Detective Bryan Martin is a hard nosed cop who falls in love with a woman of questionable background. Both Martin and his lover get caught in the firefight between mobs in search of Demko. From San Francisco to L.A. to cocaine detox to Idaho, Martin follows the trail of Steven Demko and the mobsters out to kill him.

If you think this book sounds like a superficial potboiler, think again. Michael Corrigan’s writing style makes the read worthwhile. He draws readers into the life of Steven Demko with prose that grabs and won’t let go:

“Steven paid the bill, his heart thudding as he walked to the old battered Ford. Driving toward distant Malibu, the open highway seemed so lonesome, deadly, and seductive. After post-Victorian San Francisco, Los Angeles was a swarming, disordered world; he quickly got lost on the intricate maze of freeways, driving through smog until he found the downtown bus station where he checked Felicity’s suitcase into a locker. He got off the freeway and drove Los Feliz Boulevard past Griffith Park and the American Film Institute that had once been a Catholic girls’ school. Steven rented a small apartment looking out onto a street lined with palm trees, somehow naked and oppressive looking.

“Lying on his sleeping bag on the hot empty apartment floor, he drank whiskey and tried to clear his mind, staring at the strange glow on the ceiling from outside street lights. Somewhere, Dylan was singing a song about crossing the line. He tried to sleep and dreamed of Felicity dead and himself driving into a black hole with a roaring in his ears.”

Will Steven survive to make movie history? Or will the mobsters win? You’ll have to read the book to find out.