THLR hopes launching a film & book reviews page will meet the expectations of so many of our readers who requested this addition. In the coming months, THLR will work to solicit insightful film and book reviews from art critics worldwide.
We are especially happy to introduce the poetry of Jonathan Penton and the debut novel of Becci Goodall below. THLR has added a book shelf page to allow readers to purchase various novels reviewed in our magazine.
Prosthetic Gods
a poetry chapbook by Jonathan Penton
(available February 2008)
Published by Winged City Chapbooks,
an imprint of New Sins Press
The responsibility of reviewing poetry can prove overwhelming. Especially when considering the variety of styles and personal preferences available today. Of course, reviewers can and often do undermine the very efforts of artists simply to prove their intellectual superiority.
I challenge readers and reviewers alike to duel with Jonathan Penton's artistry and intellectual prowess as found in his chapbook Prosthetic Gods. Let me say from the outset, my money is on Jonathan.
Readers will find in Prosthetic Gods compelling imagery, emotions and psychological dissonance it seems designed to provoke a serious contemplation of the stereotypes of life and morality we have learned.
Penton's narrative is simple and clear. His words express an internal conversation that is genetically engineered in western minds. A first read is important, but a second read is pure joy.
Bill Brocato, editor, THLR
From Prosthetic Gods:
So you have a moment
of true worship
and find what you'd been seeking after forgetting how to look
The moment passes, but you knew they always do
you weren't certain they'd ever return
you're stronger now, you can wait for the next one--
So you return to your life
conceived, designed, and built in misery
you bring it this ecstasy
and find it has less purpose than before
that waiting seems easy, and seeking seems senseless
Jonathan Penton
Chaise
a Novel by Becci Noblit Goodall
Published by Offense Mechanisms, 168 pages.
Copyright © 2007 Becci Noblit Goodall
Once in a great while a novel comes along that captures readers’ imaginations and forces them to find a quiet place to read, digest, meditate, rejoice and declare war.
Becci Noblit Goodall’s novel Chaise is all of the above and more.
Chaise is a narrative that races from page to page, image to image, and scene to scene, and at times touches on post-Jungian thought. Forget the notion of materialism or other post-modern philosophies that portend to understand the nature of humanity by dissecting the social and behavioral environments.
Instead, Goodall has developed a narrator of sacrifice and salvation who meets friendly (and-not-so-friendly) modern fascism through myriad momentary hiccups of memories and archetypal images (perhaps not so unlike her predecessor of an earlier period, Anaïs Nin).
Of course, Goodall’s power of persuasion and illustration lie with her almost neo-narrative approach to conscious action and dialogue. There are no wasted words. There are no Greek moments cascading across your consciousness – there is only efficient, simple language garnered from lives that brushed against an author ingesting earth's crust, dirt in order to grow emotional blooms at once dissonant and liberating.
Chaise is Goodall’s debut novel and we can only hope this is but a small taste of the work she will bring to a nearly dying literary tradition. We can only hope that with Chaise, readers will understand they have a tactical weapon to stifle the mass democratization of Art.
Bill Brocato, editor, The Houston Literary Review
In this issue, THLR is proud to present poet and essayist Dan Schneider, who has no qualms laying low artistic icons. Schneider's review of The Curse of the Cat People directed by Val Lewton and produced at RKO studios in 1944, however, is nothing less than a strong endorsement of the black and white, 70-minute masterpiece.
Dan also provides a glimpse perhaps into the political nature of film producing in the 1940's, and insight as to the mistaken classification of films similar to The Curse of the Cat People.
(Please click on this link to read Dan Schneider's review
artwork by Jeff Crouch
About Dan: Through the years I have striven to create ways for people to communicate and discourse more effectively via the arts - which are the essence of communication, with poetry the highest of arts.
Unlike most artists, I have never replaced the primary goal of creating great art with the temporal goals of political, religious, nor philosophical action. While art (communication) is the conveyance of ideas and information, it is also - paradoxically - an end unto itself. This realization has enabled me to achieve excellence in my fields. My art is apolitical and irreligious.
Dan is an internationally published poet and essayist with dozens of credits and has participated in local and national reading and writing programs, as well as contributing time and money to support the arts.