Thursday, October 4, 2018

In A Monograph My Series Of Poems Was Reviewed in the 1990s

In a Monograph about my work, Dina Ben Lev discussed the poems I read in 1987 at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University.  



I Read Poems About Mental Health Treatment After Sexual Assault in 1987

Today I will share reviews about the series of poems I wrote and read at The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University in 1987.  The poems are not about the current events in Washington D.C.  But the series of poems was about the same theme.  I can share images of the review from the Poetry Center Newsletter.  When Dina Ben Lev wrote a monograph about my work in the 1990s, she included discussion about my series of poems.  

 

 

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Alcohol In Sarah Shaber Novel

Regarding alcohol.  Alcohol is in the news in the hearings about Kavanaugh.  There are different mode of alcohol use and abuse.  I think the Kavanaugh description is predatory,  (I believe Dr. Ford, I very much do not want to see Kavanaugh approved.)  

I re-read a Sarah Shaber novel, Shell Game.  The new Sara Paretsky novel which comes out this month is called Shell Game.  There is another novel, Shell Game, somewhere as well.  

I am reminded that the two Sharah Shaber detectives in the two series I have read by her, Simon Shaw and Louise Pearlie,  are characterized as abusing alcohol.  In the most recent title in Shaber's Louise Pearlie series is Louise's Lies, a central theme is alcohol.

I admire the description in which Louise, rationing starved, has high hormone attractive quality as she drinks socially.  Hunger is the best sauce, is a saying.  This is an element of alcohol use or abuse during World War Two, in the novel, Louise's Lies, her character wonders why she is going out with this suspect in the bar murder from the first pages of the book.  It is because Louise is a spy, but she also accepts when she is asked out.  She was asked to dinner, but she knows it is because they can have a social drink.  At her rooming house they are doing without their rations of butter and sugar so they can have cookies Christmas Eve.  

I think we observe there are different modes of alcohol use and abuse.  One mode is actually predatory, to have an unsuspecting girl have a beer.