As Always, Julia edited by Joan Reardon

As Always, Julia The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto is a collection of letters edited by Joan Reardon who took extraordinary care to present these two amazing women’s correspondence as accurately as possible in regards to timeline and clarifying names and subject mentioned throughout the correspondence. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, this collection is fascinating and endearing.

Julia Child’s initial letter to Mr. DeVoto is answered by his wife, Avis, and the two women continue back and forth on all manner of subjects from knives to recipes to politics in the McCarthy era. Avis DeVoto is able to utilize her editorial skills and connections to the publishing world to assist Julia Child as she and her colleagues create the now famous cook book: Mastering The Art of French Cooking. Julia is able to teach Avis how to create particular dishes she misses from her own travels to France and the two women trade ideas about education, social classes and more throughout the years.

For those who enjoy good food or have a fondness for Julia Child this book will not disappoint. Charming to the end, it is a wonderful read and highly recommended to anyone who loves good food and/or old fashioned letter correspondence. I love both and so I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

If you enjoyed this review you may pick up a copy at your local library, visit your local book-store or follow this link below to order a copy on-line of As Always, Julia edited by Joan Reardon at:

http://www.amazon.com/As-Always-Julia-Letters-DeVoto/dp/0547417713/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325437899&sr=1-1

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Zygote In My Coffee Open Submissions

You may send 3-8 poems (no simultaneous submissions please) with a brief biography as well as a bio picture via e-mail. Be sure to include a subject heading of some kind similar to “Last name/Poetry Submission” and have your contact information along with your poems in the body of the e-mail and send it to:

submissionsATzygoteinmycoffeeDOTcom

To learn more about the press, go to:

http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/

For exact details on submission guidelines, go to:

http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/submissions.html


Good luck to all who submit, please stop in tomorrow for another featured good book…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://sites.google.com/site/larrydthomasfar/3
“#3” by Larry Thomas

https://sites.google.com/site/47rhpissue/howie-2
“Visiting Hours” by Howie Good

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doing cartwheels on doomsday afternoon by John Yamrus

doing cartwheels on doomsday afternoon by John Yamrus is published by Epic Rites Press and is a dead-pan collection of poems focusing on every day life epiphanies and circumstances. Mr. Yamrus pulls no punches, his work is straightforward and to the point. Below I am happy to share a sample with you:

i just now

agreed to an interview.

this one’s
for monday.

it’ll be
the same old questions,

like:

“how’d you get
started?”

“who
do you read?”

and
“who are you influenced by?”

all the same questions
and never once
do i get asked
the right one.

in my
opinion,
the only one.

the one that
says:

“you write a lot about
dogs…

why is that?”

if they’d only
ask me
that

i’d go away
happy.

i’d sit them down
and tell them

exactly

what the dogs
do for me…

they teach me
joy,

perseverance

and
acceptance.

they teach me
total concentration
on a single task.

and
most of all
they teach me
the secret…

the answer to
the one question
i’m asked the most.

the one question
that i’ll never
answer.

they wouldn’t
believe me
even if i
did.

they’d think
i’m lying.

but, you won’t,
will you?

the truth
is

the great secret
these dogs
teach me

is
there isn’t
any.

I like this poem because I am usually the one interviewing someone else and hoping I can go beyond the typically asked question and know the writer has a question they’re dying for someone to ask them. This poem illustrates it perfectly along with adding the wisdom of canines—that there are no secrets in life, just life itself.



giving

them
what they
want

can
be hard

on
a man’s

soul.

This poem speaks the plain and simple truth, no further words needed.



New York just

wasn’t
the same.

i remember
as a kid

everything was
gray and brown

like
the old movies,

and my uncle
had this
2nd floor
walk-up,

with a
single bulb
hanging from a wire
at the top of the stairs.

i remember the night
someone
dropped
a bag of bottles
down the steps,
and the neighbors
yelled,

and my uncle
yelled
back

and the soft
grays

and warm browns

felt safe,

and
we lounged around
in the alleys of the universe.

no, New York’s not
the same.

nothing is.

except for maybe
that old girl,
sorrow.

This poem casts a warm glow on an unusual memory of bottles crashing down the stairs amidst the brown and gray tones of city life. I can’t help but wonder what the poet saw the next time he was in New York that brought about this particular memory and lament.

Mr. Yamrus has published 17 volumes of poetry and 2 novels, his work has been translated into several languages and has been taught in high school and college curriculums. Some of his titles include: New and Selected Poems, Blue Collar, Shoot The Moon, Someone Else’s Dream (a novel), and many more. If you enjoyed this review of doing cartwheels on doomsday afternoon by John Yamrus you may purchase a copy for $20.00 from Epic Rites Press by going to:

http://www.epicrites.org/bookstore.html

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

How A Poem Happens Blog

Brian Brodeur’s blog states “Contemporary Poets Discuss the Making of Poems” and delivers! Interviews with poets about their work and about poetry take place here, read on for inspiration at:

http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/


Thanks for clicking in, please stop in tomorrow for another featured poet…