Customer Reviews

The White Calf Kicks

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Abounding in beautiful-even disturbing-imagery, ideas, and metaphors, Deborah Slicer's collection of poems in The White Calf Kicks is a masterfully crafted composite of emotions, soul-searching, and literary control. Throughout this collection, readers meet an author who displays the effects of the world around her and the history behind her. From a langue d'oc, Petrarchan sense of love-longing and misery to Romantic ideas of the sublime to existential and postmodern philosophy, Slicer invokes traditions of literary past and present throughout White Calf. For example, Slicer presents a Cummings-like technique in several poems, including "Cancer: Two Lyrics." In "The Two Horses," the persona comes to a state of awe for nature, which turns to admire itself as the roses applaud the wild naturalness of the two horses. In her opening poem "Loco," Slicer presents a persona in the midst of grief over lost love-not to mention the jealousy and loneliness evoked by those in love. Slicer's composition interests the literary reader as a representation of the culmination of the evolution of literature.

Slicer also offers profound images that stay with the reader long after the book has been closed. In "Loco" Slicer presents a metaphor of a "crazy angel" that throws sorrow around in one's mouth so that the sorrow is expressed in unrestrained, "childish fury." "Snowflakes" begins with a metaphor comparing snowflakes to the fools that God sweeps off of his floor. Many of Slicer's poems present such images and ideas that seem so unique that only Slicer could explain their true meaning; however, that does not stop them from being interpretable and highly enjoyable. In "Song for Myself," Slicer compares the imposition of other's perceptions upon the persona to the imposition of God as an uninvited (though rightful) presence-a trespasser, even. Such images provoke the mind to a joyful sense of wonder, regardless of perfect understanding. In a postmodern world, there are no master narratives. As Slicer conveys in her collection, we question and doubt; we feel angry and lonely; and we search for the answers as to why grief, loss, and injustice exist. In the end, we cannot reach a perfect understanding of God or His ways, but we can attain a perspective of the world that makes it a livable place.

In fact, characteristics of Slicer's techniques are put into action as the persona searches for answers to the questions we all ask, but often find eternally unanswered. The persona wanders through a world of grief and loneliness-a Kierkegaardian sense of aloneness in the universe, even. Just as Stephen Crane told us that the universe feels no sense of responsibility to man for his existence, Slicer portrays the fact that the natural world overpowers human existence and endeavors. One cannot stop the moth from destroying the "faux silk pillowcase" in the poem "Betrayal," and mother does know-"best" is debatable-in "Highline Cosmology" when she states that all things must come to an end.

However, in the midst of all of this, Slicer offers hope in "Shiners," wherein life and order are destroyed into chaos but cycle into a Paradise-like order-a recreation of a better existence. When confronted with so much turmoil and injustice, Slicer's powerful collection teaches us the importance of anger as a way to expression and as a release from pain in self-realization. The rage felt may not bring absolute peace. However, anger and speculation allow the freedom to feel truly and lead to discover ways to cope in a hard, lonely world. When you read The White Calf Kicks, you enter a world that brings pain and pleasure all at once. Deborah Slicer presents a work that is beautifully written and thoughtfully evocative.

I think it was Chekhov who said a good rendering of "nature" makes the natural world seem like a character a the story, not merely a setting. In this moving first book of poems, Deborah Slicer's natural world is a character of imense depth and complexity. It is never stock or cliche; instead it reveals, line by stunning line, the marvelous range of human emotion.

Although THE WHITE CALF KICKS is her first collection of poems, Deborah Slicer is no beginner getting by on her "promise". These poems, set in the mountains of Montana, leap from phrase to phrase in a way that is truly magical. Often, the surprising juxtapositions make for ironic or humorous touches, but the subjects of loss and loneliness give the poems a deep sadness. This balance between comedy and tragedy imbue these poems with rare depth.

Deborah Slicer: The White Calf Kicks

Being set largely in the Northwestern U.S., especially the enormous open plains of Montana and Wyoming, the poems of Deborah Slicer's The White Calf Kicks are deceptively energetic. At once pastoral and frenetic, these poems slide back and forth through expansive scenery and unordinary perspectives. With a refined, technical grace, Slicer embraces multiple, yet divergent paths of life and poetry. There is a crisp intelligence present here, as well as a deep and often breathtaking understanding of the music of language. "Philosopher's headache. / Poet's itch." (47), she says, refusing to make a definite discernment between the two, and certainly in this book the philosopher and the poet within Slicer have engaged in a unique and exciting symbiosis.