Tropic of Squalor

May 1, 2018

Known for her groundbreaking memoirs (The Liars' Club), Whiting and Pushcart Prize-winning poet Karr uses vivid description and everyday language, plus storytelling techniques and the layering of both expected and unexpected details, to delve into suicide, love, illness, and family relationships. She also tackles questions of morality and the environment--"The oil barons too smart to live here would/ as soon snuff us out as look at us--// our spongy tumors, the scarlet growth on the bird dog's belly"--and describes the death of a friend's child thus: "She sat with us in flames/ That not all saw." Occasionally, Karr's word choices work against clarity, and she sometimes employs mixed metaphors, but several strong poems focusing on a fellow poet's heart transplant resonate emotionally. On the whole, these poems help readers to see the world anew, whether it's a "licorice boy, eeling past all comers" in a basketball game, or the 9-11 rescue workers who make an unexpected discovery: "The worst wasn't when firemen found/ a bit of human matter--finger or tooth--/ And it was placed on its own stretcher (so small?)" VERDICT Though the meaning of some lines, such as "Thirst is the truest knowledge of water" remain uncertain, these poems definitely assuage some of our thirst.--Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2018
Karr breathes fire, lunges for the jugular, and sets traps in her fifth poetry collection, which could also have been titled Tropic of Candor. Known best for her bold memoirs, Karr brings the same scorching frankness to her vivid, kinetic lyrics. Her toughness, lithe energy, and edgy humor bodies forth with particular zest in Loony Bin Basketball, a play-by-play of patients on the court, coached by psych techs, in which Catatonic Bill is transformed: eeling past all comers, each shot / sheer net. Karr mocks the squalor of depression even as she expresses sympathy and grief along with anger and hilarity, ranting against suicide and mourning for David Foster Wallace. She adeptly yokes the timeless with the now, observing our habitual heads-down worship in cell-phone light. The long sequence, The Less Holy Bible, is an irreverently personal, unapologetically skeptical, gingerly spiritual, delectably provocative riff shaped by condemnation of the oil industry's poisoning of her home state of Texas and adoration for scruffy, hectic New York. Karr's poems are thrilling in their vitality, dazzle, nerve, longing, and camouflaged depth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)