Point and Line

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: As a homemaker in Pennsylvania, I rarely cross paths with such refreshing and challenging work as Thalia Field's. The chapters "Setting, The Table" and "Walking" opened me up to a whole range of stories buried in the everyday details of the home: "the debris leaves/the deafness of the/elderly or/the watermark of drinking glasses/put down so long/even the stain has aged..." I don't know what to call this book--a poem, a novel, a play? All I know is that it's pretty darn amazing.

Rating:
Summary: Experimental and empty
Review: Field is a gifted writer, exploring language with the arsenal of a fully inspired wordsmith. Unfortunately, Point and Line suffers from the all too familiar post-modern stance, the "cleverness above-all-else" hiding place. This book reads like a compilation of Graduate School experiments (albeit one of the more innovative schools, such as Brown or Bard), as if this is Field's short work to date, lacking the rigor of a fuller effort. Keep an eye on Field's output, however, if you're intrigued by the works of Stein, Joyce, Beckett et al. She may yet produce a work of substance and import.

Rating:
Summary: Sparkling, fresh and brilliant debut
Review: I anticipated this book more than almost any other new young poet's collection of the past year. The "blurbs" accompanying the book are extraordinary, announcing Field as a virtual literary savior for her generation. Yet, unfortunately, the experimental, whimiscal, and nonsensical formal play in the book makes for all dazzle and dance and very little else. These poems look gorgeous on the page, intriguing, inviting because they simply *look* exciting, and yet the stories and thinking and images in each fall blandly, flatly, dead silent on the ground. For all its experimentation, the book actually borders on the cliche.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: The book is amazing. People who think the book is post-modern, experimental hype are people who, I imagine, still read Tennyson aloud to their parakeets and, to boot, can hold converstions about Tennyson with humans at parties. Field's book, on the other hand, is something to take with you, as a map, when you are alone in New York City or Alaska, and your mind and body feel a bit numb. Wake up! This is a book to make your spine go white. Check out Kim Fortier's review in Rain City. Let's not be boring.

Rating:
Summary: I feel appreciated for being a good customer
Review: The book is amazing. People who think the book is post-modern, experimental hype are people who, I imagine, still read Tennyson aloud to their parakeets and, to boot, can hold converstions about Tennyson with humans at parties. Field's book, on the other hand, is something to take with you, as a map, when you are alone in New York City or Alaska, and your mind and body feel a bit numb. Wake up! This is a book to make your spine go white. Check out Kim Fortier's review in Rain City. Let's not be boring.