Category Archives: American Literature

BOOK REVIEW: “Scattered Poems” by Jack Kerouac

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Scattered PoemsScattered Poems by Jack Kerouac
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Open Road Media

Kerouac is best known as a novelist, particularly as the author of the groundbreaking Beat work, On the Road, but he did publish one poetry collection during his lifetime, Mexico City Blues. This book, Scattered Poems, was the first of a glut of posthumously released poetry collections. With posthumously released editions, one usually has to wonder how close the book is to the poet’s ideal, given the author’s lack of input into the final product but — given Kerouac’s penchant for spontaneous composition and airing pieces as they fell from the mind — it’s probable these poems wouldn’t have been highly edited. (Note: A number of the pieces were previously published, but many were obtained from private correspondence — notably letters to Allen Ginsberg.)

The poems are mostly free verse, and the rhyming verse (e.g. “Pull My Daisy”) is usually short line or doggerel lines falling into longer poems. The poems deal in both Kerouac’s birth religion, Christianity, and Buddhism, a philosophy which had a major influence on his thinking throughout his adult life. Some have a Zen quality that makes it hard to determine whether they are nonsense or a conduit from satori (or both.) To enjoy these poems, one must have a love of spontaneity. Readers expecting a polished collection may be displeased but will certainly have missed Kerouac’s philosophy of writing which strove to emulate the improvisation of Jazz.

I enjoyed this collection, and I think the publisher did a good job of showing the arrangement of the poems as written. I’d highly recommend this work for poetry readers who enjoy stream of consciousness experimental poetry or anyone interested in the work of the Beats.

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PROMPT: Fictional Character

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Daily writing prompt
Who is the fictional character you relate to the most?
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Capt. John Yossarian of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. The only sane response to an insane world is to be insane.

PROMPT: Ending

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Daily writing prompt
If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose?
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Like many, I feel that for such an excellent and powerful book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has a muddled ending.

Far be it for me to rewrite Twain, but I might’ve done some chopping.

BOOKS: “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes

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The Weary BluesThe Weary Blues by Langston Hughes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online — Lehigh University

Langston Hughes was one of the greats of 20th century American poetry, and The Weary Blues was his first collection (1926,) containing some of his most beloved (and anthologized) pieces, including: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “I, too, sing America” [a.k.a. Epilogue; which plays off Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing.”] I’ve always loved how Hughes used the rhythm of repetition and the technique of standing in for the everyman (as he famously did in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” but in other of his poems as well.) He also had a gift for concision.

These sixty-nine poems deal in a wide range of themes including race, travel, love, etc. Music, be it Jazz or Blues, is an ever-present force in Hughes work. In addition to the aforementioned classics, among my favorite pieces from the collection are: “Winter Moon,” “March Moon,” “‘The Night is Beautiful'” [a.k.a. Poem,] “When Sue Wears Red,” “Water Front Streets,” “Long Trip,” “Seascape,” “Suicide’s Note,” “Songs to the Dark,” and “Lament for Dark Peoples.”

I’d highly recommend this collection for poetry readers.

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PROMPT: Changed

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world?
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Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

Also: Quiet by Susan Cain; Water Margin by Shī Nài’ān; and Self-Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

BOOK: “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk

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Fight ClubFight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – W.W. Norton

Through a weird and wild storyline, Palahniuk offers insight into two (intertwined) crises of identity that have only grown more prominent since the book (and the David Fincher film adapted from it) came out in the late 90’s. First and foremost, there is a craving for, yet confusion about the nature of, masculinity. As men raised by women struggle to ape masculine behavior only to over-emphasize conspicuous features such as violence and aggression while missing more subtle aspects such as the instinct to protect and a grasp of responsibility, self-empowerment, and fortitude. The second identity crisis is self as consumer, wherein people start linking who they are to their consumption, and this becomes demoralizing because it’s such a hallow way of seeing oneself. (I say the crises are “intertwined” because it’s a long and painful fall to go from “protector” to “consumer-” the latter having nothing at all to feel good about.)

This is one of those books that people either find illuminating or unreadable. There is a lot in the book that is stomach-turning. For many, this will be the violence, but — for me, and I suspect many others, — it’s the “mischievous” pranks that Tyler Durden and the unnamed lead “play” as they work as waiters. Upton Sinclair once said of The Jungle that he aimed for the reader’s heart (i.e. to bring awareness to labor issues in the meat packing industry) and hit them square in the stomach (i.e. people’s main takeaway was that how their food was made was gross and needed to be corrected.) This may be a similar situation. Palahniuk, I suspect, is trying to show how these full-grown men in some ways haven’t escaped the grossest era of boyhood as they attempt to find their power in the world, but it mostly reminded me to not eat at banquets or other gatherings of rich people.

I found this to be an insightful book and would highly recommend it for anyone trying to figure out some of the oddities of the world in which we find ourselves living.

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BOOKS: “Four Quartets” by T. S. Eliot

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Four QuartetsFour Quartets by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online

Four Quartets is a collection of four long poems by T.S. Eliot, written over several years before and during the Second World War. The poems are: “Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding.” They share a theme of metaphysical inquiry, particularly regarding time and man’s relation therewith. The book came out about five years before Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and was the last of his major poetry collections, and so it reflects a mature phase of his poetry writing.

I loved this collection, which combines food for thought with beautiful turn of phrase. As far as I could see, most of the disgruntlement with the collection had to do with Eliot’s religious / spiritual references, which offended the sensibilities of some of the most stridently atheist / agnostic individuals in the poetic community. Besides reflecting his own Christian worldview, Eliot had clearly been moved by reading the Bhagavad Gita and makes a number of references to Krishna.

Four Quartets is a pleasant read and I’d highly recommend it for poetry readers.

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PROMPT: Read Over

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Daily writing prompt
What book could you read over and over again?
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孙子兵法, i.e. “The Art of War” by Sunzi (孙子) is one that I can and have read more than twice.

I’m not a huge re-reader, but others include “Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras,” “Hamlet,” “Leaves of Grass,” and Miyamoto Musashi’s “Book of Five Rings.” Translated literature is often good for more than one read because translations vary so much.

PROMPT: Character

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Daily writing prompt
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
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Tom Sawyer. I have zero capacity to convince anyone that whitewashing is powerful fun. It’s a skill I envy.

BOOK: Transient Worlds by Arthur Sze

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Transient Worlds: On Translating PoetryTransient Worlds: On Translating Poetry by Arthur Sze
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Copper Canyon

Release Date: April 14, 2026

Just as people are fond of saying, “the book is always better than the movie,” there is an idea — widely accepted as truism — that goes, “a translation can never be as good as its source poem.” I don’t buy either of those views, but there’s certainly truth to the notion that a poetic translation can never perfectly echo style, tone, sound quality, and meaning at once. Each language is unique, and the more different two languages are the more one has to make decisions about what one will emulate and what one will craft. It’s also true that any translation will represent a drift away from the culture of the original (which is not identical to being worse.) In short, any poetry translation that seeks to be good had better be a work of art unto itself.

The current US Poet Laureate (as of this writing,) Arthur Sze, has written a book to help readers intelligently navigate the troubled waters of poetic translation. Sze certainly has insight, having not only translated Chinese poems himself, but also being Professor Emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, he has multiple cultural lenses with which to view poetry.

This book consists of fifteen chapters exploring poems and poetry excerpts from around the globe — and their translations. The twelve diverse source languages include: Chinese, Navajo, French, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Danish, and Russian. The original poets include Tao Qian, Guillaume Apollinaire, Homer, Kobayashi Issa, Pablo Neruda, Marina Tsvetaeva, Aime Cesaire, Najwan Darwish, and Mirabai. Many of the chapters include multiple translations, offering the reader a means to see how different translators take to the task. Others offer only a single translation but turn their attention to specific considerations of translation. In one case, there is an interview with the translator. I enjoyed this varied approach to the exploring the topic. It made for a book with zero monotony and many facets.

If you are a poet or a poetry reader who enjoys reading poetry from varied languages or source languages, I’d highly recommend this book.

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