Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A modern adaptation to an old story

A Stone Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel

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Recently my work email had email telling that a book was coming but also singing the praises of A Stone Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel. When a book gets high praise, I tend to be skeptical. I have been burned before by the “next great thing.” Usually, then I realize that it has “something” that is not “for me” and is “someone else’s book.” This time, I think it is everyone’s book. I am not sure how to talk about this book. It seems to […]

Emotional ride

Autopsy by Donte Collins

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#cbr11bingo #rainbowflag Autopsy is one of those poetry books that could be extremely controversial. Not only are the subject matters not easy to deal with (race, class, death, adoption, sexuality), these subjects are not easy to read. The other part of this is, if for some reason you are not 1000 percent “on board,” it could cause accusations of racism and bigotry. Therefore, this is not the first book to start with when you are starting out with a book of poetry. Therefore, this book […]

Do not feed the monsters.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo

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“Do not feed the monsters. Some are wandering thought forms, looking for a place to set up house. Some are sent to you deliberately. They come from arrows of gossip, jealousy, or envy–and inadvertently from thoughtlessness. They feed on your attention, and feast on your fear.”   So goes one of the transitional pieces in this relatively short, but expansive collection of poems by Joy Harjo. Harjo’s poems tap into a kind of timelessness and world-spirituality looking for longer visions of clarity and peace. What […]

Listening with your eyes

Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners by Naomi Shihab Nye

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#cbr11bingo #ILoveThis I am not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I read about half way through Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners by  Naomi Shihab Nye before I realized I thought I had read it before. This is due to one poem being fairly unforgettable in subject. (However, had you asked me the title I could not have told you). This poem was about Nye visiting Jack Kerouac’s wife, in their home, and how it seems real life was as […]

Viscerally Real

The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolaño

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The Savage Detectives is a lot. Being my second Bolaño doorstopper of the year, I assumed I knew what I was in for. I was way off. This was a far more challenging read than 2666. It had its rewards and I’m glad I stuck with it. But I needed to take a break halfway through, at the risk of putting it aside for good. I’m glad I did because the plot is not the most important thing going on here. This can possibly be considered a […]

What’s that I see walkin’ in these woods? Why, it’s Little Red Riding Hood

Red Riding Hood by Beatrix Potter

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#cbr11bingo #Classic I knew that Beatrix Potter had written outside the Peter Rabbit series but was not as familiar with them as I might have been. And I certainly did not realize she had written a slight retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story in Red Riding Hood. This is the traditionally-traditional Little Red story as it is darker and is more of a nod to the original tale. The illustrator, Helen Oxenbury, has an introduction that tells of how Potter’s edition is closer […]



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