nonfiction

Publisher: Self-Published

Published: May 4, 2022

Genres: Poetry, Self-Help, Philosophy, Nonfiction

Pages: 245

“Here I fit, in my slot, / A tiny but irreplaceable puzzle piece…” – A*K²

Poetry collections are apt at capturing a running theme only to set it free to follow its every move ad infinitum. Opposite to cat-and-mouse antics, poetry delivers a message that belongs to someone and everyone. With poetry, a message becomes the message, which in turn becomes Message. Each message can change interpretation or ideation with each new reading. Upon reading Unplug. In-Power. Recreate: Transformative Poetry by Archana Karthikeyan (A*K²), the invitation for change is painted with a broad brush.

Truths are shared, images are presented, but they suffer from association and a lack of correlation. Relationships between truth and image to establish any metaphor with far-reaching consequence is replaced with pithy platitudes. The mortal sin of writing is to tell and to tell too much. The damnation of that sin is the curse of knowledge; the assumption that a student knows and experiences knowledge the way a teacher does. For example, the poem “Smoke & Mirrors” sets up two promising pictures that could serve concrete meanings but ends in an obvious if-then, cause-and-effect pay-off.

Poetry should teach not just through telling, but showing. In equal measure, although with partial leaning towards showing as a rule of thumb, explanation should clarify while pictorial language should simplify. Poetry is not meant to be a counselor. Poetry is not meant to be an advice column. However, one can find counsel from a poem without it being too didactic, generic, or redundant. The poetry in Unplug takes on conversational and confessional tones, as if the speaker has been the recipient of response poems and written response poems from a place of respite and resolve.

A*K² makes good on this in “I Don’t Fit In” where being accepted and accepting yourself are ideas in conflict with each other. It uses a problem and solution text structure that gets its advice across concretely and abstractly, but this form is relied on and recycled often in this collection, giving a hollow ring to truths. The father-to-son advice from “If—” by Rudyard Kipling balances the well-meaning (sentimental) with the discerning (practical) that begins broad (truth) and paces that truth in considerate, specific circumstances (imagery) reflective of its subject, theme, and audience. Stating the truth without exploring the truth leaves the truth starving in a devolved, stagnant, mitigated, and less meaningful state. Unplug unfortunately undermines its truths in a long string of advice sans enough practical examples that would meet its calls to action.

Final Rating:

$2 Bill

Apple, Tree

Author: Lise Funderburg

Illustrator: Nathan Putens

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Published: September 2019

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir

Pages: 232

Click here to purchase the book!

“I suppose there’s a pleasure in that wistfulness too–in remembering the way something was and holding tight to what will also one day be a memory.” – Lauren Grodstein, “Around the Table” from Apple, Tree

Childhood is reverse parenting. Growing up takes on the responsibility of becoming, which is found in the adults who rear the child. Growing down however leads one to becoming what is else, what is more, what is unexpected. Apple, Tree: Writers on Their Parents by Lise Funderburg explores the adolescent trappings and developments of its contributors, starting from the root and out to the branch where gravity took a hold of them and plotted them in front of the parental gaze. Far pass Freudian theory, this collection on child rearing and family dynamics informs the writer’s life as something both undesirable and desirable as bath time. The dichotomous relationship of the apple (child) and the tree (parent) can be felt first in the bifurcation by the comma in the book’s title. Difference within or between family members is not always apparent, but as the tree holds the apple, the parent holds onto the child, until the child notices just how far out of reach the parent is and vice versa. The proverbial fall experienced by these collected writers attempts to find out if this transition into adulthood should be a rude awakening or a heedful reminder.

A running theme in Apple, Tree is the child who believes to possess large philosophies while the parents have small ones. It is not until they have aged that they realize it is the opposite. In some cases, these philosophies are challenged. Reading Shukree Hassan Tilghman’s piece, “Lies My Parents (Never But Maybe) Should’ve Told Me,” one finds the impossibly delicate veil that lies between humoring a white lie and the, sometimes, harrowing truth at the end of its punchline. In Avi Steinberg’s “Household Idols” and Donna Masini’s “What We Keep,” stories of heirlooms are rummaged for in what would be the unmistakable home of an accidental, sometimes purposeful, hoarder. Some authors here have struggled with identifying with their parents, sharing similar appearance (“Sisters” by Ann Patchett) or judgment (“One Man’s Poison” by Kyoko Mori). A chance to pervade rather than drown in the genetic pool still exists yet. From her story, “Unlived Lives,” Laura Miller writes that parents “can be the most familiar people in the world and total strangers; they have a dark side like the moon, that’s invisible to us as long as we remain locked in the fixed orbit of the parent-child bond” (87). Dissidence and denial delineates and loosely defines the duality a parent and child share. Daniel Mendelsohn’s mother has a neat-freak personality, for example, causing her to chase the life she could have had by keeping her house a spotless sheen in the hopes that time lost will return to her. It is behaviors like this, the need to meet perfection, that leave both the parent and child less than imperfect.

Funderburg mentions in her introduction that Apple, Tree is an exploration of “the space between the apple and the tree…” She also quotes John Freedman as saying that this exploration of family is a “love [that] is in clarity, not sentiment” (Funderburg xii). Perhaps there is no one answer to all the unanswered questions children may have for their parents. Parents too, may not know or have all the answers themselves until their children come up with better questions. The theory that the apple does not fall from the tree must have some truth in it. Maybe the answers present themselves only in practice? Here is one more attempt to answer a proverb with another: when the apple is ripe, it will fall.

Final Rating:

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