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4.0 out of 5 stars
Add to this year's required reading list, November 7, 2006
This review is from: A Writer's Journey in Poetry & Prose (Paperback)
The world seems full of people who have things happen to them that prevent them from living their dreams. They weren't born pretty enough. Rich enough. Thin enough. Smart enough. And on and on and on. These are the same folks who stare blankly in amazement of someone like Gregory Bernard Banks, because they cannot fathom in their own minds how someone who has spent his entire life in a wheelchair, suffering from Osteogenesis Imperfecta (a brittle bone disorder), manages to not only survive but happily thrive. Perhaps if they could tear themselves away from their own self-pity to read his newest book, A Writer's Journey in Poetry and Prose, they might realize the truth. And that truth is that we each chose how to live our lives, and how we will respond to the adversities than life presents to us. That one need not have some mysterious luck or special gift to find happiness, but instead just chose to do so.
A Writer's Journey in Poetry and Prose is a literary scrapbook chronicling the author's life. While I would usually scold an author for peppering a collection with different font types, sizes, and such, the use of such devices seems appropriate for this collection. The end effect is one of finding an old box of lost letters in the attic, the soul of the author laid bare as if he never intended anyone to read them.
The book is loosely organized into four major "galleries": art, poetry, essays, and short stories. Each section is lead with brief autobiographical essays discussing various events from Banks life. Gallery One discusses Banks early years and education. Graduating 10th in his class, he discusses how total strangers approached him afterwards, highly emotional and inspired by the fact that he had achieved such academic success.
"I'm not sure whether I `should' take those things as being special, but I'm honestly glad I don't," explained Banks in the book. "There are plenty of people already walking around blinded by their own greatness. I think I'll just stay humble and innocent. Seems to have worked well for me so far, anyway."
It's a theme that carries throughout the book, the strange juxtaposition of how people are amazed at his accomplishments "in spite of" his condition, while he simply sees his accomplishments as simply doing what it is in his nature to do.
Gallery One concludes with examples of Banks' graphical work, mostly copies of bookcover designs and logo-style art. I don't really feel the art actually adds anything substantial to the collection as a whole, though it doesn't overly detract from the presentation either.
Gallery Two discusses Banks early success, of sorts, in publishing. He recalls how thrilled he was when one of his poems was accepted for inclusion in a collection published by the Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum.
"Although I learned afterward that it wasn't as impressive a credit as I'd thought at the time, it was still very exciting to see a work of mine on the printed page, even if it was a small corner of said page that only those authors published within it would ever see."
The section concludes with a variety of both previously published poems and new poems. Banks tends to favor a shorter line with rhyming verse, but it is the longer, more complex poems like Flawless that his talent really shines.
"I walk the streets, smiling at all my brothers
and sisters in both blood and kind. Mirrors
have become pointless as all I have to do
is stare into one of my siblings' faces to see
my own..."
Gallery Three, aptly lead by the chapter title "A Writer Grows Up," focuses on Banks essays. He candidly discusses how his grandmother's fight with Alzheimer's disease impacted his writing, and led to the writing of Fading Away. The story, which first appeared in the premiere issue of The Story Garden, is written from the point of view of an Alzheimer sufferer struggling to communicate his final thoughts to his daughter. The Gallery features several previously published essays, and covers a range of topics from how-to essays on building a relationship with your audience as a writer to living life to the fullest regardless of your circumstances.
Finally, Banks opens Gallery Four with a discussion of how he stumbled into self-publishing and launched his own imprint, Wheelman Press. For anyone who has considered self-publishing, this section will open your eyes to the actual process and work involved. Then Banks presents several of his short stories for the reader, both previously published works and new tales.
While the addition of mostly commercial artwork samples in Gallery One seemed unnecessary and a few of the shorter poems felt forced, the essays and short stories in this collection truly showcase the author's talents. I won't, however, go so far as to defining this book as some sappy inspirational collection. No, this book isn't really meant to just inspire. It's more like a swift kick in the backside in order to get the readers to stop using whatever excuses they have been using. The book is a not-so-subtle reminder that there are two types of people in the world. There are those who sit passively and lament all the things that happen to them, and there are those who live proactively and make things happen for themselves. We chose which we want to be, and it is obvious which group Banks falls into. We could use more writers like him.
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