October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman YP FIC NEWMAN

Then and Now -Lesléa Newman

Then I was a son

Now I am a symbol

Then I was a brother

Now I am an absence

Then I was a friend

Now I am a memory

Then I was a person

Now I am a headline

Then I was a guy

Now I am a ghost

Then I was a student

Now I am a lesson

On October 6, 1998 a 21 year old young man was brutally beaten, tied to a fence, and left for dead. Matthew Shepard became a symbol of victims of hate crimes everywhere and his case drew worldwide attention.  This book of poems from Lesléa Newman looks back at the crime, its aftermath, and the person behind the symbol.  Poems from the perspective of Matthew, the killers, the community, and the silent witnesses of the fence and other inanimate objects paint a chilling and heartbreaking picture of a life tragically lost.

This is an absolutely stunning work of poetry.  Lesléa Newman uses different voices, styles, and structures to approach the crime and tragedy form many different angles.  This works to make the story about more than a crime, but also to bring the person of Matthew to the forefront.  The poem above is an excellent example of her sparse language and use of pounding repetition to hammer hard truths home.  In other poems she uses a completely different style and structure.  She also uses poems taken from almost random inspirations like Now Showing, a list of film titles that appeared in theaters in 1998 formed into a poem. The variation is key to capturing different feelings, ideas, voices, and moods.  She does a wonderful job of giving voice to not just many people, but also things like the fence Matthew was tied to, the rope that tied him, the gun of his killers, their truck, the road they drove on, and more.  I think this should be read by just about everyone, because regardless of your feelings on homosexuality we can all come together to agree that no one should be murdered for who they are, what they believe, or how they love. This is a slender volume that you could easily read in a few hours, but will stay with you long after.  

You can check our catalog for October Mourning here.

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge YP FIC KOERTGE

Whats grimmer than Grimms’ Tales?  A collection of fairy tales skewed and skewered with a modern sensibility and dark, wicked humor.  See the dark side of a princesses’ hyper-sensitivity to peas (a dog lick can cause a scar!), Hansel and Gretel’s vengeance, murders most foul and terrible (and these are committed by the ‘heroes’), and where happy ever after is the worst after of all.

Good news: this is smart, funny, dark satire that looks at all sorts of modern, ancient, and timeless hypocrisies; and the power of storytelling to celebrate, lament, explain, obscure, and change the best and worst of things that cannot be explained and things we wish we could wish away.  Bad news: this excellent and slender volume of wickedly funny verse is almost entirely unintelligible if you don’t know the original fairy tales by heart. Conundrum!  Fortunately we have a solution! You can read the absolutely wonderful Grimms’ tales in Grimms' Tales for Young and Old: The Complete Stories at call number 398.210943 GRIMM. And they are AWESOME!  They are creepy, dark, and filled with the fear of the unknown that makes for the best horror and the worst sleepless nights.  What’s great is that Koertge gets that and his modern retellings just look at the same fears, insecurities, and longings in the original stories in a modern light.  I especially enjoy the tales where Koertge looks at the primal fascination with danger and death these stories represent.  This is a truly unique read and it isn’t for everyone, but everyone that it is for will be very glad they read it.

You can check our catalog for Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses here.

What You Wish For: Stories and Poems for Darfur YP FIC WHAT

Stories and poems about wishes (the ones that come true and the ones that don’t).  Francisco X. Stork, Joyce Carol Oates, Jane Yolen, Gary Soto, Meg Cabot, and many more pen poems and short stories with some proceeds of the book going to Darfur refugees.  

This is a wonderful and surprising collection.  I expected this to be a book about Darfur and to be grim, humorless, and depressing, but this book is filled with stories of life, love, magic, and hope.  Also, it’s not about Darfur it’s just FOR Darfur.  Sort of confusing.  Also, the fact that it is about ‘wishes’ feels a little too general for a collection for short stories.  That out of the way it is a really GOOD collection of short stories.  My favorites personally were “Nell” a dark retelling of an old Danish short story, “The Protectionist” a funny story about a economics obsessed kid looking for a bodyguard, and “The Conjurers” a comic from the always wonderful Nate Powell.  There is a lot of gems and no real clunkers, so it’s a really good way to read a lot of stories to find new authors to follow. 

Set to Sea by Drew Weing YP FIC WEING

Arrrr it’s a sailing life for our hero, just not by choice. He is just a gentle giant of a poet who fell asleep on shore looking for inspiration about his book of sea poems, when a sailing crew forces him to be a part of their crew. At sea he faces pirates, storms, and all measures of danger and along the way finds a new kind of poetry in this rollicking and original graphic novel adventure.

Drew Weing has done a load of work on webcomics (a great place for free indie comics!) and single story work, but this is his first bona fide graphic novel. I already can’t wait for what’s next. His style looks like a mix between old Popeye comics (read at 741.5973 SEGAR) and Jeff Smith’s Bone (YP FIC SMITH), but feels like something all its own. Each panel is a full page, but it is a small size book, so the panels aren’t that much larger than they would be in a normal sized graphic novel. It still makes for a huge visual impact to only have one picture per page. The story is pretty simple, there is very little dialog, we don’t get to see character’s thoughts so that leaves only the images to tell the story. That’s a bold feat for an artist and Weing really pulls it off. So if you want a truly fun fast read about the sailing life and like indie comics, then Set to Sea is a sure bet.

Teen Angst: a Celebration of Really Bad Poetry Edited by Sarah Bynoe 811.008 TEEN

The first collection of the best (meaning worst, but totally in a good way) of poems submitted to teenangstpoetry.com. Poems fall under headings like "I will never love again" Poems, I am Alone--an no one understands my pain Poems, Life Sucks and I Want to Die Poems, and others. A collection of staggeringly bad poetry for every teen that angsts or the former sad, mad, head-over-heels-in love, or whatever other reason we have to write poems teen in all of us.

Right off the bat I want to add the disclaimer that I personally have NEVER written BAD POETRY and anybody claiming otherwise is clearly lying and their 'evidence' is obvious forgeries. That being said I love poetry and think absolutely everyone should read it and try to write it at least once, so this book is one of my favorites. It has some painfully bad poems that become painfully funny when read out loud and is in an odd way very encouraging. It shows that the pains and toils of adolescence are shared by many and that creativity can help us survive it. It also shows that no matter how bad your poems or bad your pain is one day you can look back and laugh at it. And any book that reminds us of that is pretty awesome. If you like poems and are looking for a laugh, this is a great read.