Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

(forthcoming from CW Books, May 2010) Bobbi Lurie writes poetry that hurts. Grief Suite follows the decline and deaths of its subjects with unflinching honesty. From the sterile hospitals rooms and invasive procedures that fill them to the exposure of decaying family dynamics through the course of illness and its aftermath, Lurie takes the reader on a journey through guilt, anger, denial, accusation—aspects of the “five stages” so many counselors talk about. But after reading this collection of free-verse and prose poetry, the truth seems to be that when it comes to Grief, nothing is cut and dry enough to be categorized. It must be simply lived. Or, truer still—survived. The collection begins with “Traveling North,” a prose poem that uses strings of image-phrases that call to mind Kerouac’s Mexico City works and Burroughs’s cut-up style. The punctuation works like a drum beating the battle-rhythm before the carnage. (In a later poem she writes: “I fragment short prayers, picking at the...

(Fisher King Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-981034-40-9) By Joey Madia There is little doubt that in the nearly 20 years between the publication of Robert Bly’s Iron John and the re-publication/re-vision of Resurrecting the Unicorn by Fisher King Press (it was previously published under the title Emasculation of the Unicorn: The Loss and Rebuilding of Masculinity in America) that the dilemmas faced by the postmodern man have only grown more complex. Notice the change from “Emasculation” to “Resurrecting” in the title. It certainly makes the book more PC and less potentially off-putting, and this bears out in the text. This is not a radical manifesto on the loss of the masculine but a thought-provoking examination of just where the true essence of Manhood went off the rails. There is an excellent case made for journeying through the Feminine Principle in order to arrive at the Masculine, an idea championed by Carl Jung and countless Eastern mystics. This is about Balance and Inclusion, not ma...

(Forthcoming from Marick Press, 2010, http://www.marickpress.com, Price: $14.95, ISBN 13: 978-1-934851-12-8) In the past 12 months I have had the opportunity to review several collections written by poets who are producing works stemming from their condition of being a Westerner in the East or vice versa. The time for such catalogued experiences is certainly ripe—with the United States and Asia having no choice but to come to terms with one another economically and otherwise, and the growing realization (from a small but potent population) that the future of our world must exist in a place that honors Uniqueness without fortifying Boundaries, such dichotomy-breaking insights are keys to the doors of New Possibility. Who better to keep those keys than the modern poet? From Sze-Lorrain’s bio we learn the following: She was born in Singapore and “grew up in a hybrid of cultures.” She attended school in Britain, the United States, and France. She has performed worldwide as a zheng concerti...

In today’s self-help book market, finding something new is becoming harder and harder. In many ways, it’s all been said before, and often times far better, by far wiser people. It was with this challenge in mind that I began reading C. Clinton Sidle’s This Hungry Spirit. The year was coming to an end, I had thoughts of resolutions and self-betterment for 2010 at the forefront of my mind, and as I shuffled through the stack of books I had to review, it seemed like as good a choice as any. Sidle’s credentials are impressive. He is director of the Roy H. Park Leadership Fellows Program in the Johnson School of Management at Cornell, as well as being a leading authority on leadership, executive coaching, and developing human potential and author of two other books. So what was different about This Hungry Spirit? First and foremost, I found Sidle’s honesty about his personal life and challenges to be genuine to an extent that I have not seen in a long time in books such as this. While most ...

“Far from the Fool”: A Review of John Gartland’s Gravity’s Fool (2009, Assumption University Press, ISBN: 974-615-242-4) by Joey Madia Many a modern poet has stacks of unsold books filling the corners of his or her writing room. This is a matter of both competition as well as the lamentable lack of interest in poetry in today’s reader. Perhaps as condensed forms of Communication continue to emerge, based on the requirements of Social Networking sites, poetry will re-take its place in readers’ daily lives. In the meantime, it is good to know that some poets, such as John Gartland, are putting out additional editions of their titles. This fourth edition, published by Assumption University Press, features a new final poem and a few words by Steve Conlon, Dean of the Graduate school, about Gartland’s collaboration with Tom Hodgins (Poetry Universe 1: Poetry without Frontiers, which I will be reviewing later this year). Gartland is a novelist, playwright, and poet, and a founding member of ...

(Moongazy Publishing, 2007, www.stonewylde.com) by Joey Madia In the past two years I have had the pleasure of reading and reviewing the first two books in the Stonewylde series, Magus of Stonewylde and Moondance of Stonewylde. With the plot well in motion and the stakes raised to an almost unbearable height, I eagerly began reading what was to be the final book in the cycle, Solstice at Stonewylde. It did not disappoint. The most psychological of the three books, Solstice slows down the action as compared to the first two, considering the larger issues of power and wealth and just how far a person will go to obtain them. What is willingly left behind, what natural alliances are so easily broken, just how much of a price in soul and spirit we find ourselves willing to pay are all explored through scenes of mental and physical torture that leave the reader hoping that some heroic character will come bursting through the door to save the day. But just like in life, no one comes, because ...

A Review of Journey to the Heart, by Nora Caron (2008, Fisher King Press, www.fisherkingpress.com) In this time of complexity and endless challenge, I have come to truly appreciate a good, well-told tale of spiritual quest and growth. Journey to the Heart, by debut novelist Nora Caron, is just such a book. Her main character, Lucina (“illumination”; the Roman goddess of childbirth), has a lousy job, an overbearing mother, and a poor history with men. Needing to get away and gain some perspective, she goes to Mexico City. Fans of the Mel Mathews books LeRoi, Menopause Man, and Samsara (also from Fisher King Press) may recognize what could easily pass for the female Malcolm Clay. Here she is, in a country not her own (she is Canadian) and she is crass and sarcastic, disparaging the ways and customs of the locals and asking herself such things about her host as “Did she want to murder her? Turn her into a human burrito or something?” (p. 16). This is in reference to Señora Labotta, a myst...