These poems, grounded in the present moment, expertly balance individual and collective experiences.
Foley’s latest collection of poetry searches for beauty, hope, and love in the face of personal and global tribulations.
In the title poem, the speaker observes the pastoral beauty of starlit winter snow while ruminating on the warming climate that will one day melt it away. She wonders, as she “sled[s] and snowshoe[s] through cold winter days,” whether her well-meaning actions—composting, recycling, eating a meat-free diet—are enough to “please” the Earth and “ease the anxiety” of the young people who will inherit the planet. She notes that “oblivion” lies ahead but, as suggested through steady tercets, seems to have made a kind of peace with that; perhaps she trusts younger activists of the world to take over in her generation’s stead. Though eclectic in subject matter, many poems in this collection echo the titular entry in their balance of the personal with the global, often with the Covid-19 pandemic looming in the background. In turn, the speaker tends to hold the good and the bad at once, describing what she sees in affectingly clear language, as if she were relaying scenes from her life to a manufacturer of peculiarly realistic snow globes. In “The Croissant,” homemade pastries with jam are eaten on “days made tasteless by isolation.” In “Corona Spring,” it snows outside the window while the speaker’s wife, a central figure in the collection, waits for her next cancer treatment. The speaker’s wisdom and positivity grow more palpable from reading the poems in succession; she’s well acquainted with weariness, grief, and loneliness, yet she never fails to point out the beautiful thing that’s shining in the corner. Readers wary of unsolicited comfort from strangers can rest assured that this collection doesn’t fancy itself a salve for the bereaved. It may, however, inspire readers to take stock of the things for which they’re grateful.
These poems, grounded in the present moment, expertly balance individual and collective experiences.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 78
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Are rivers alive? Macfarlane delivers a lucid, memorable argument in the affirmative.
The accomplished British nature writer turns to issues of environmental ethics in his latest exploration of the world.
In 1971, a law instructor asked a musing-out-loud question: Do trees have legal standing? His answer was widely mocked at the time, but it has gained in force: As Macfarlane chronicles here, Indigenous groups around the world are pressing “an idea that changes the world—the idea that a river is alive.” In the first major section of the book, Macfarlane travels to the Ecuadorian rainforest, where a river flows straight through a belt of gold and other mineral deposits that are, of course, much desired; his company on a long slog through the woods is a brilliant mycologist whose research projects have led not just to the discovery of a mushroom species that “would have first flourished on the supercontinent [of Gondwana] that formed over half a billion years ago,” but also to her proposing that fungi be considered a kingdom on a footing with flora and fauna. Other formidable activists figure in his next travels, to the great rivers of northern India, where, against the odds, some courts have lately been given to “shift Indian law away from anthropocentrism and towards something like ecological jurisprudence, underpinned by social justice.” The best part of the book, for those who enjoy outdoor thrills and spills, is Macfarlane’s third campaign, this one following a river in eastern Canada that, as has already happened to so many waterways there, is threatened to be impounded for hydroelectric power and other extractive uses. In delightfully eccentric company, and guided by the wisdom of an Indigenous woman who advises him to ask the river just one question, Macfarlane travels through territory so rugged that “even the trout have portage trails,” returning with hard-won wisdom about our evanescence and, one hopes, a river’s permanence and power to shape our lives for the better.
Are rivers alive? Macfarlane delivers a lucid, memorable argument in the affirmative.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780393242133
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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