100-Year-Old Poet
www.ralphmag.org/JE/indexJE.html
Late Winter 2017
Title
Author
Publisher
Subject
Ron Arias
Palenque and "Toxicos"
The Strange Death of Thomas Merton
The Readers of RALPH
[Letters]
Correspondence with the Magazine
Concerning Previous
Reviews, Articles,
Poems, Readings, and
Letters to RALPH
15 Knee-Slappers
The Editors of RALPH
[List]
A Dozen or So of the Funniest Books from the Early Days of RALPH
Sober Stick Figure
A Memoir
Amber Tozer
(Running Press)
A Full-Time Alcoholic Tells of Her Blackouts, Drunken
Lay-Overs, and the Impossibility of
Stopping with the First Bottle
Tales from Nowhere
Unexpected Stories from
Unexpected Places
Don George, Editor
(Lonely Planet)
Thirty or so Horror Tales from Being on the Road
Presented Here as If the Book Were Brand New.
It Ain't - - - Having Been Published Ten Years Ago
Joyce Brothers
The Founding Mother of
Television Psychology
Kathleen Collins
(Rowman & Littlefield)
Dr. Brothers Was a Bona Fide Psychology - - -
But She Broke into Television by Pretending to Be
A Master on the Exotica of Boxing
Where I Can See You
Larry Sweazy
(Seventh Street)
Detective Hud Mathews Goes Back to Lake Demmie
Where the Bodies Start Dropping Like Flies
The Tortoise of History
Poems
Anselm Hollo
(Coffee Hoouse)
Exotic Beatnik Poetry by One Who Grew Up in Finland
The Colour of Shadows
Images of Caribbean Slavery
Judy Raymond
(Caribbean Studies Press)
A Few, Very Few, Pictures by Richard Bridgens
With Endless Text on Slavery Horrors in Trinidad
New World Dharma
Interviews and Encounters with
Buddhist Teachers, Writers, and Leaders
Trevor Carolan
(State University of New York)
More than Thirty American Masters of Buddhism
on the Coming of that Discipline to these Shores
One String Guitar
A Novel
Mona de Vestel
(Harvard Square Editions)
A Catalogue of Horrors of [1] The Rwandan genocide
Followed by a Catalogue of Horrors of [2] 19th Century American Indians
Missing Believed Killed[G]
The Remarkable Story of
A Japanese POW Camp Survivor
John Baxter
(Arum Books)
Three Years During WWII as a Japanese Prisoner
Nights in the
Pink Motel[G]
An American Strategist's
Pursuit of Peace in Iraq
Robert Earle
(Naval Institute Press)
A Sterling Account of John Negroponte's "Thinker" - - -
Trying to Come Up with an "Exit Strategy" from Iraq
Reviews of Two New Hollywood Epics
"Monster Trucks" and "Great Wall"
Dr. Phage
[Article]
Two Recent Films Dissected with Aplomb
A Brief, Subjective, Personal, Biased, Irregular
Survey of
Arts and Literary Sites on the Web
Douglas Cruickshank
[Article]
Ten Great Literary/Arts Links to Be Found Online
The Municipal Jail in Mérida
Charles Portis
[Reading]
A Jail That Doesn't Care If You Go Hang
Thomas Merton's Death
Interview
with John Russell
[Reading]
Some Thoughts on the Controversial
Death of the Famed Religious Figure
Hunchback Mountain
Anselm Hollo
[Poetry]
Modigliani
first name Amedeo
didn't live long enough
to paint you
this morning
(or one of many mornings)
stretched out
beside me
Letter from
Breslau Prison
Rosa Luxemburg
[Reading]
Letter to Sophie Liebnecht on
Solitary Christmas in Prison
| Title | Author | Publisher | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|
|
RALPH's Stodgy Humor Drugs and The Winter War |
The Readers of RALPH | [Letters] |
Correspondence with the Magazine Concerning Previous Reviews, Articles, Poems, Readings, and Letters to RALPH |
| Looking for Betty MacDonald
The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I | Paula Becker | (University of Washington Press) |
An Exhaustive Examination of the Life and Works of the Elegant Comic Pacific Northwest Writer |
| The Boat Rocker | Ha Jin | (Pantheon) |
An Odd Book Telling of A Man Obsessed by the Writings of his Ex-Wife |
| The Enigma of Iris Murphy** Stories | Maureen Millea Smith | (Livingston Press) |
The Moving Tale of a Public Defender Who Is Suddenly Defending Herself against Death |
| And the Monkey Learned Nothing* Dispatches from a Life in Transit |
Tom Lutz | (Sightline / University of Iowa) |
Sixty Eight Dispatches from All Over the World In Comic, Detailed Form |
| The Hemingway Thief | Shaun Harris | (Seventh Street Books) |
A Lost Manuscript of Hemingway Found in Seedy Ensendada Baja |
| Get Well Soon
History's Worst Plagues and The Heroes Who Fought Them |
Jennifer Wright | (Henry Holt) |
A Semi-Comic Approach to the Most Devastating Diseases that Have Plagued Humanity |
| Polio Boulevard**
A Memoir |
Karen Chase | (Excelsior/State University of New York Albany) |
A Gentle Story of the Author's Time in Hospital the Now Conquered Disease |
|
Human Heart, Cosmic Heart
A Doctor's Quest to Understand, Treat, And Prevent Cardiovascular Disease |
Thomas Cowan, M. D. | (Chelsea Green) |
An Off-the-Wall Disquisition on Heart Disease - - - And Some of Its More Obscure Cures |
| Heavy Metal
A Novel |
Andrew Bourelle | (Autumn House) |
A Surprisingly Vivid Story of Two Brothers and Gang Warfare through the Haze of Heavy Metal |
|
A Frozen Hell[G] The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939 - 40 |
William R. Trotter | (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill) |
How the Russians Were Stymied for The Better Part of a Year in Beating The Finns in 1940 -1941 |
|
Abbott Awaits[G]**
A Novel |
Chris Bachelder | (Louisiana State University Press) |
A Classic Child Raises the Father from An Unknown (and Superb) Author |
|
As Long as I'm Still Entertainable |
Mike Ervin | [Article] |
One of the Best Disabled Writers on What Happens When They Take Away Everything |
| Cameron Kills Pretty Enemy LLP | Maureen Millea Smith | [Reading] |
A Lawyer from the Rez - - -Learning How To Live with His Interns |
| Life on a
Chicken Ranch Daily Tasks on the Chicken Ranch |
Betty MacDonald | [Readings] |
Making the Best of Life on The Wilds of Washington State |
| A Kennedy in Each of Us | Gary Margolis | [Poem] |
The senator's son wasn't supposed to tell anyone his mother and father were drunks he loved. Like you and me, he was the secret they counted on, to hold things in. |
| Recuerdo | Edna St. Vincent Millay | [Poem] |
We were very tired, we were very merry - - - We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable - - - But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon . . . |
| The
Bestiary[S] Or, Procession of Orpheus Guillaume Apollinaire |
X. J. Kennedy, Translator | (Johns Hopkins University Press) |
The Twenty-Six Aanimals in The Bestiary In Woodcuts by Raoul Dufy. |
| Title | Author | Publisher | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|
|
C. M. Mayo and Human Heart, Cosmic Heart Bach & Ich Habe Genug |
The Readers of RALPH | [Letters] |
Correspondence with the Magazine Concerning Previous Reviews, Articles, Poems, Readings, and Letters to RALPH |
| 15 Lost Poems | The Editors | [List] |
Poems dug up over the last year or so to match those published in The Vivisection Mambo |
|
The Drug Hunters*
The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines | Donald R. Kirsch, Ogi Ogas | (Arcade) |
A Long and Interesting Study of How New or Traditional Drugs Get into the Marketplace |
|
Wild Sex*
The Science Behind Mating In the Animal Kingdom | Carin Bondar | (Pegasus Books) |
A Wry (and very exhausting) exhaustive study of how the birds, beasts, and bugs do it in the hay |
|
Police at the Station*
And They Don't Look Friendly | Adrian McKinty | (Seventh Street Books) |
Another riotous tale of the slightly unhinged Sean Duffy finally puts all to rights using Buster Keaton, John Berryman, and Yeats |
| Burmese Monk's Tales | Maung Htin Aung | (Pariyatti Press) |
Filled with practical if not raucous sayings of the very holy and often funny Thingazar Sayadaw. |
|
Al Capone's Beer Wars
A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition | John "The Professor" Binder | (Prometheus Books) |
A deep examination of the inner workings of the most notorious Chicago Prohibition gangs |
|
FDR on His Houseboat
The Larooco Log, 1924 - 1926 | Karen Chase, Editor | (Excelsior/State University of New York Press) |
Roosevelt's extensive efforts to learn to walk again before he began his second political career |
|
The Art of Death
Writing the Final Story | Edwidge Danticat | (Graywolf) | A somewhat overdone study of the final cook-out (of us all) |
|
The Urban Fox
And Other Poems | Ian Dunlop | (Paekakariki Press) | A gorgeous small volume of the poetaster's first poems. |
| The Last Prince of The Mexican Empire[G] | Catherine Mansell Mayo | (Unbridled Books) | A superb rendering of Ferdinand Maximilian last days as emperor |
|
Eskimo
Architecture[G]
Dwelling and Structure in The Early Historic Period |
Molly Lee Gregory A. Reinhardt |
(University of Alaska Press) |
Fallingwater, the Eiffel Tower, and Chartres - - - all done in ice. |
| Johann Sebastian Bach[G] The BBC's Bach Christmas | L. W. Milam | [Article] |
The Week That Was: When the BBC gave over seven days to nothing but Bach |
| Johann Sebastian Bach The BBC's Bach Christmas | Dr. Phage | [Reading] | The source of Bach's genius: He came, we now know, from the planet Ixneria |
| What's Love Got To Do with It? |
From Human Heart, Cosmic Heart Thomas Cowan, MD |
(Chelsea Green Publishing) |
Some thoughts on heart transplants - - - How they change the personality of the recipient |
|
The First Painless Operation
Oil of Vitriol | Donald R. Kirsch and Ogi Ogas | [Reading] | The very first operation that was completely painless |
| Metamorphosis | Susan Okie | [Poem] |
The high desert's adapting me, molding the squat, flattened shape and blunt snout of a short-horned lizard, one of a dozen species found in North and Central America. |
| Heart Failure | Christopher Buckley | [Poem] |
A former student jokes that I'm a Cyborg now, although everything I love on earth demands an old school iambic meter to hold us here, to steady and slow the rotation of the stars red-shifted, and forever moving away. |
| Title | Author | Publisher | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Al Capone's Beer Wars
The Founders of RALPH This Life by Karel Schoeman |
The Readers of RALPH | [Letters] |
Correspondence with the Magazine Concerning Previous Reviews, Articles, Poems, Readings, and Letters to RALPH |
| 15 Wriggly Animals | The Editors | [List] |
Earlier reviews about those creatures who love to love you (or even want to love you to death) |
|
WPA Buildings* Architecture and Art of the New Deal |
Joseph Maresca | (Schiffer) |
A Run-Down of The Great Depression Experiment with Grand, Restrained, Gently Elegant Public Buildings |
|
A Guided Tour of Hell
A Graphic Memoir | Samuel Bercholz | (Shambhala) |
One man's guided visit to the Buddha hell to get cooked - - - alternating with frozen blisters and chilblains |
|
Isabella of Castile Europe's First Great Queen | Giles Tremlett | (Bloomsbury) | One of the first Iron Iron ladies |
| Elephants in My Back Yard* A Memoir |
Rajiv Surendra | (Regan Arts) | All he wanted to do was to land the starring role in The Life of Pi - - - but failing that, he charms to reader beyond all good reason |
| A Thin Bright Line* | Lucy Jane Bledsoe | (University of Wisconsin) | The scary gay lives of American women of the 1950s |
| At the Edge of the Orchard | Tracy Chevalier | (Penquin) |
The ordinary day-to-day horrors of staking out land in mid-nineteenth century America - - - and yet ending up as expert on native trees. |
| The Selected Letters of John Cage* | Laura Kuhn | (Wesleyan University Press) | An engrossing collection - - - the best of the atonal black-arts magician |
| This Life[G]* | Karel Schoeman | (Archipelago) | A transfixing novel on survival of the Africaans in South Africa 150 years ago |
| Arrogance[G]* | Joanna Scott | (Picador) |
The mad momentous artist Egon Schiele revealed in all his bawdy splendor |
| The Richard A. C. Greene Campaign for Washington State Land Commissioner | L. W. Milam | [Article] |
One of the most ferociously bizarre political campaigns of the last fifty years |
| Cancer in Midlife | Maureen Millea Smith | [Reading] | Mid-life woe from The Enigma of Iris Murphy |
| The Exploding Whale | Bernd Heinrich | [Reading] | The Do's and Don't's of caring for a whale body washed up on your beach |
| Heart Test with An Echo Chamber | Margaret Atwood | [Poem] |
"Wired up at the ankles and one wrist, a wet probe rolling over my skin, I see my heart on a screen like a rubber bulb or a soft fig, but larger, enclosing a tentative double flutter, the rhythm of someone out of breath but trying to speak anyway; two valves opening and shutting like damp wings unfurling from a gray pupa." |
| Seven Poems from the Writers of RALPH Tootie-Fruit ME & Ass-Grasp LA | C. A. Amantea | [Poems] |
"In conclusion, I should like to report that our brains Are now pickled & dried with love, & are thus weighted In units of filial darkness. Our watches separate time From space (in planetary feet) & thus put us on the Very last train to Bugger Bean OH or Assgrasp LA, All singing Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Mani." |
| Title | Author | Publisher | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|
|
To Say It Unbridled Scabies, Baby |
The Readers of RALPH | [Letters] |
Correspondence with the Magazine Concerning Previous Reviews, Articles, Poems, Readings, and Letters to RALPH |
| The Weirdest Books | The Editors | [List] |
Some of the Oddest Books that have Come into the Magazine for Review |
|
Such a Waste of Stars*
Poems | Tom Crawford | (The Search) |
One of the Best of the New Poets - - - with a Typically Dry & Buddha Wit of It All |
|
Vintage Trailer Voyeur
A Peek Inside the Unique Trailer Culture | Victoria Ocken | (Schiffer) |
Those Lovely Floating Land Launches - - - Here Renewed with Care |
| Mrs. Caliban** | Rachel Ingalls | (New Directions) |
A Reissue of the Great Novel from Thirty Years Ago - - - Complete with a Jolly (and Steamy) Green Lover (and His Sedate Love) |
|
What She Ate:
Six Remarkable Women and The Food that Tells Their Story | Laura Shapiro | (Viking) |
Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Gurley Brown, Dorothy Wordsworth and Eva Braun - - - and the Food They Did (And More Often Didn't) Eat |
| Olio* | Tyehimba Jess | (Wave Books) |
Being Black in a Slave World - - - and the Tools used to Get Out from Under |
| Unforbidden Pleasures** | Adam Phillips | (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) |
A Terrific Study of the Contradictory Forces That Made Us (and Oedipus, & Adam & Eve) Tick |
|
Finks
How the CIA Tricked The World's Best Writers | Joel Whitney | (OR Books) |
Our Best (and Most Wily) Literature Types Lulled into Thinking They Were Being Free (While Marching to The Beat of a Different Drummer) |
| A People's History of Poverty in America[G] | Stephan Pimpare | (The New Press) |
How to Control the Poor with Monies (That Keep Them on the Straight, the Narrow and the Locked Up) |
|
Skin Deep[G]
Tattoos, the Disappearing West, Very Bad Men, and My Deep Love for them All | Karol Griffin | (Harcourt) |
A Terrific Autobiography about How to Decorate Tough Guys with Needle and Ink |
| The Ultimate Retirement | L. W. Milam | [Article] | The Final Laying Out of Our Final Days |
|
Refusing
an Honorary Degree The Proper Diet, and Telling the President of TWA Airlines About the Best Flight Food | John Cage | [Readings] |
It Wasn't All About Time (4:33) In the Master's World |
| Slavery and the Welfare State | Stephen Pimpare | [Reading] | Public Relief, Indentured Servitude and Slavery |
| Redwing, The Pie Is Now | Tom Crawford | [Poetry] |
"It's silly to talk to the peach tree about future pies, that's why we have portfolio managers for those who want to get ahead, which can be hell on a good night's sleep." |
|
Three More Poems
Survival The Forge Bad Day at the Beauty Salon | Lynne Knight, George Bilgere, Maggie Estep | [Poetry] |
"I sat inside like a portrait, pretending to be a portrait when he came by, holding my breath, eyes staring straight beyond him. Your mother's disappeared again, he'd call to my daughter, who'd come near, feign a search for me. Some people need to escape, she'd say, and wave her hand, and turn away." |
|
Lusitania[S]
An Epic Tragedy | Diana Preston | (Walker) |
The Moment-by-Moment of the Great Disaster (That Changed the Course, for Worse) of the U.S. - - - 1917 |