Saturday, September 3, 2016

Gustave Flaubert - Poetry Is Everywhere

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.
Gustave Flaubert

Sunday, July 24, 2016

In Remembrance of the Life- New Poetry Book by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is one of my  favorite contemporary poets. Check out her new book.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
James Esch, Publisher
Spruce Alley Press
484-354-7729

NEW CHAPBOOK BY JANE ROSENBERG LAFORGE:  In Remembrance of the Life



West Chester, PA, July 8, 2016 –  Spruce Alley Press today announced the release of In Remembrance of the Life,  a chapbook by Jane Rosenberg LaForge. 

The book consists of 25 elegiac and unflinching poems that harvest a transformative beauty from the fields of memory and loss.

“Poetry at its best engages with the realities of life. Some of the biggies are death, loss, and memory. Jane’s poetry meets these subjects head-on, with refreshing honesty and insight,” said James Esch, publisher at Spruce Alley Press. 

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is a poet and writer living in New York City. Her poetry, fiction, critical and personal essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry Quarterly, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ottawa Arts Review, Boston Literary Magazine, THRUSH, Ne'er-Do-Well Literary Magazine, and The Western Journal of Black Studies. Her memoir-fantasy, An Unsuitable Princess, is available from Jaded Ibis Press. Her full-length collection of poetry, With Apologies to Mick Jagger, Other Gods, and All Women was published in fall 2012 by The Aldrich Press. She is also the author of the chapbooks After Voices, published by Burning River of Cleveland in 2009, and Half-Life, from Big Table Publishing of Boston in 2010. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.  Follow her on twitter at @JaneRLaForge. Website: http://jane-rosenberg-laforge.com/


Some reviews of In Remembrance of the Life:

"Rosenberg LaForge points toward the beauty of inevitability; death is less an end than a step toward 'the infinite, and you can/ no longer resist the distance.' Reading these poems is often akin to ‘diving into a rainbow of saffron and petrol,’ where the choices one makes may not be choices at all."
Leslie McGrath, poet and author of Out from the Pleiades: a Novella (Jaded Ibis Press, 2014)

"Reading In Remembrance of the Life is like reading Virginia Woolf if she were writing poetry—one image triggers another appearing to emerge from the unconscious...a book that the reader will return to again and again."
Chella Courington, author of The Somewhat Sad Tale of the Pitcher and the Crow and Love Letter to Biology 250.


Details:
In Remembrance of the Life by Jane Rosenberg LaForge
44 pages, Paperback
25 poems
ISBN 9781365002564

Available for purchase at lulu.com:

Also distributed through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and independent bookstores worldwide.

NOTE: Review copies are available (electronic PDF or print). The author is available for interview requests.

ABOUT
Spruce Alley was founded in 2013 by James Esch in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The press is a micropublisher of independent literature, audio, and artwork in print-on-demand and digital formats. Contact James Esch (sprucealley@gmail.com) or go to www.sprucealley.com.


Wednesday, June 22, 2016

“Absolution” by F. Scott Fitzgerald A Classic American Short Story . Have a Read.



 "Absolution" is filled with moments of beautiful prose. It is a story of  three peoples's intense inner conflicts about religious beliefs and  their behaviours. It was written in 1924.
 F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote the Great Gatsby is the author.

https://literaryfictions.com/fiction-1/absolution-by-f-scott-fitzgerald/

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks-Book Review-"Over the Plain Houses is a stunning novel of love, betrayal, madness and change."



Hardcover: 280 pages
Publisher: Hub City Press (May 1, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1938235215
ISBN-13: 978-1938235214
 
 "Franks' debut is a thoughtful exploration of one woman's quest to live life on her own terms."-Kirkus Reviews

 

 Over the Plain Houses tells the story of what it was like to be a woman, wife and mother in rural North Carolina in 1939.  It also tells the story of the gradual disintegration of one woman’s marriage. Over the Plain Houses is a stunning novel of love, betrayal, madness (Brodis thought his wife was a witch and a sinner) and change. It is filled with the rich landscapes and details of earthy country life.


In Over the Plain Houses, we meet Irenie Lambey wife of Brodis Lambey.  We learn first hand how the life of a farm wife married to a former logger turned fundamentalist preacher (whose self declared mission was to spread the word of God) changes when the USDA sends Virginia Furman a modern woman and government employee to Irenie and Brodis’s town to teach the women modern ways of housekeeping as other USDA employees had previously come to town to encourage the men to  grow “modern” crops like tobacco that would  provide  a better income for their families. 
 
The former simple lives and beliefs of many of the farmers and their wives were challenged by Virginia Furman and her progressive (at the time) ideas. One of  the concepts Irenie struggled with was  Brodis's interpretation of the Biblical Eve and Adam’s relationship.
 

"Listen. Eve shall be ruled by her husband and in sorrow bear children. She shall spend her life disappearing, and the blue flame shall sputter and shrink into its own self for years to come."

"Do you own Mama?" she asked her father in the midst of her confusion.

 Irenie's mother had said to her, " 'You don't have to be like Vina Jones.' Mrs. Jones had birthed a child every year for seventeen year running."

 What did a woman in 1939 do when she did not want another child, abortion was illegal? What will Irenie do?

 
Julia Franks' descriptions of nature, the farm animals and the passing seasons adds to the authenticity of the story. The descriptions are filled with sensory impressions that made me feel I was there watching the logs tumble down the falls in the water or I was there when the hounds went on a night walk with Irenie.  I could feel the soil and the night air. I was there in  Irenie’s and Brodis’s bedroom seeing the square of light filter through the one small window at night while they lay under a quilt in a sparsely furnished room where the Bible was by the bed.  Franks’ descriptions of place with visual vignettes is superb. Franks depicted the outer world of this couple with the eye of an artist and botanist and she portrayed the inner world of these two with compassion and the insight of a writer who gets her characters completely. You can’t help feel her empathy for them even if  they act terribly.

 
The book is constructed like a river that meanders with slow passages and then bursts into volatile inner and outer terrain. The pace invited me to keep reading, there was tension in the story heightened at the right pivotal points. Occasionally I thought the pace was slowed down by endless descriptions of nature.  But later I realized these passages offered a reprieve to the reader to gather their emotions like Brodis and Irenie did.

 
This book will resonate to women of any age I believe who love a man or love a man they fear. It will resonate to men and their concepts of provider and protector of “their” women.  It is a book for people who love nature and the way of life in the county. It is a book for history lovers. It is a book for anyone who wants to read a story where people are wrestling with cherished beliefs and inner demons, a story of conflict and redemption set in an authentic world that is fading.
 
 In the hands of a lesser writer Brodis and Irenie could have become one-dimensional characters, a fire and brimstone preacher and a woman who wanted to be free. In Franks’ hands they became conflicted people like many of us wanting to live their dreams.