books | ZETEO | Page 2

Jane Jacobs: Intuition vs. Evidence

August 31, 2015 by fritztucker

After having read countless authors who cite Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and having intuitively come to many Jane Jacobs-esque conclusions on my own over the years, I finally decided it was time to read the original work. Many of the conclusions Jacobs comes to resonate with my personal experience. Critiquing the notion that parks are safer for children than streets, Jacobs writes: “what significant change does occur if children are transferred from a lively city street to […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: books, childhood, children, civil rights, History, literature, New York City, social justice, women, writing

Fortune’s Cookies

August 4, 2015 by Ana Maria Caballero

A friend recently sent me an upbeat, effortless Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919) poem that I immediately liked. And then immediately didn’t know if I liked. The poem is from Ferlinghetti’s record-breaking “A Coney Island State of Mind,” which was published in 1955 and sold over a million copies in nine different languages. The poet’s life story is worth reading. He is an orphan, veteran, journalist, world traveller, publisher (he was the first to publish “Howl“), painter, political activist and still-active ninety-something-year-old. Except for a few poems, […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: books, Ferlinghetti, poetry, reading, writing

Leave a comment

Better than a Great Song

July 21, 2015 by Ana Maria Caballero

Several years ago, British poet John Fuller wrote a poem with a bright future as a chart-topping pop song. Perhaps its catchy flow is due to the fact that it’s a strict villanelle, or perhaps it’s due to the fact that the poem is about unrequited, but not tortured, love. There’s just enough heartache to make it interesting, but no one is suffering too badly. Fuller is known for mastering traditional form and making it palatable. The villanelle for example can […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: books, John Fuller, literature, poetry, reading, writing

Abandoned Men

July 14, 2015 by Ana Maria Caballero

Brooklyn Copeland is a young, prolific poet who has published individual poems in venues like Poetry Magazine and The New York Times. She also has several chapbooks and full length poetry collections available. As readily available as her work is online to peruse, I found it hard to pin down. “Self-conscious” is definitely a word that came to mind. “Intentional” is another. But, then I also wanted to say “evocative” and “effective.” I considered “skilled” but then read a few […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: books, poetry, reading, writing

Leave a comment

Flirtation

June 23, 2015 by Ana Maria Caballero

Rita Dove was named Poet Laureate of the United States in 1993 when she was just forty years old. By then, though, she had written a few novels and several collections of poetry, including Thomas and Beulah (1986), which won the Pulitzer Prize. The poem below is not an example of how Dove confronts complex historical issues in her work, brings them home and makes them personal. Rather, it is a light piece, a flirtation. But, it’s summer now, officially, and […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: books, literature, love, poetry, reading, writing

Leave a comment

Louie C.K. and the Virtues of Realism

June 1, 2015 by fritztucker

On the hit show Louie, aside from a token, comedic clip of fantasy in each episode, realism rules the roost. Louie C.K.’s dedication to portraying the struggles of a single-father and stand-up comedian in NYC in a realistic fashion leaves the show, much like real life, somewhere between a comedy and a drama.

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: art, books, crime, ethics, film, gender, lit, literature, love, New York City, rape, sexual assault, sexuality

Leave a comment

At Every Wedding

May 26, 2015 by Ana Maria Caballero

Not many young adult authors launch their novels with a poem, much less a two-page piece that transcends their target demographic. So I was surprised to find the poem below on the very first page of bestselling YA author Sarah Dessen‘s novel “That Summer.” The poem is by South Carolina author Dannye Romine Powell, an award-winning poet, writer and long-time book editor at the “Charlotte Observer,” who counts a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship among her accolades. More of her beautifully crafted pieces […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, Archives, ZiR • Tags: books, literature, love, poetry, reading, writing

Leave a comment

Seen and Felt

May 12, 2015 by Ana Maria Caballero

Poetry bears witness to events that surround it, sure. But it is not the news. It is not an opinion column either. It dips its slippery toe into telling, showing, and expressing so as to permit each reader to recreate the very event over and over anew and on a personal basis. Such a feat is perhaps simpler to accomplish when the events in question are household, such as a divorce, a child, aging. But when the event relates to the fate of political […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: books, History, literature, poetry, writing

Leave a comment

Courage as Measure

April 28, 2015 by William Eaton

After the poet dies, people like to argue about the relevance of their work. Was it innovative? Did it do something new for form, for formality, for fluency. Does it deserve to be reread in schools or university seminars? Sometimes this discussion is valid. Sometimes the poetry in question is perhaps only marginally relevant. Other times the discussion becomes ridiculous, as it does when it concerns a poet like Anne Sexton. Sexton, often linked to the Confessional poets, which includes writers like […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: anne sexton, books, feminism, literature, poetry, reading, writing