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Show The Salt Lake Tribune Sunday, April 7, 2002 Small Books With Big Ideas ___ BEST SELLERS (TAN McEWAN AMSTERDAM BOOKS Boise publisher carries on chapbook tradition with compact, quality poetry (Picador) 3. Fall on Your Knees. Ann-Marie MacDonald (Scril BY MARTIN NAPARSTECK aca ee oe Pale Blue Wings Let us now praise fabulous chap- books. The wood 8. My Dream of You. Nuala "I (Riverhead) §. The Death of Vishnu. Manil Suri (Perennial) 10. Girl in Hyacinth Blue. Susan ) Trade Paperback Here are the week's Book Sense Now-Fiction 1. A Beantiful Mind. Sylvia Nasar ») 2. Fast Food Nation. Eric Schlosser ) 3. Founding Brothers. Joseph J. Eilis (Vintage) 4. Me Talk Pretty One Day. David ae —______— pups———— several decades ago when sales of Chemo full-length books ofpoetry plummeted to near extinction. . The chapbook helped keep American poetry from dying. And few publishers h i ished so manygood chapbooks as has Limberlost Press in Boise, Idaho. Three new Limberlost mini-collections illustrate L ries) 8. The Tipping Point. Malcolm MyFeet,” the narrator writes without 1.Tell No One. Harlan Coben (Dell) a A Painted House. John Grisham el) 3. The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Amy ‘Tan (Ballantine) er) By 5. A Walk to Remember. Nicholas prise (although Sawtooth Country ByDavid Beisly-Guiotto; Limberiost Press, $15 aes 's may be a useful gerinition of love. about Sawtooth Country,it's the same one that can be made abouttaking a camera when you go hiking: stepping to snapa picture is less likely to provide a lasting memory than it is to discourage lingering to look at the enticing scene. The technology fools the photographer into thinking film is more lasting than memory.Still, these are fine snapshots that do, indeed, help others see whatthe poet has seen. Part ofwhat Limberlost does well is to provide a forum for regional poets. ‘Takacs teaches at College of Eastern Utah in Price; Dorn taught for two decades at the University of Colorado ChemoDuca Sabe ae by at Boulder, Beisly-Guiottois from Idaease ho. Another thing Limberiost does “My brother says to buy condoms/ ‘any good chapbooks as has Limberlo: in Bois {ers little subtlety and plenty of di- well is print physically attractive books: heavy stock paper, handsewn binding, pleasing typefaces, things agreeable to hold and gaze upon. toilet as if,/ my husband would have forgotten ini: i il baitcoliecsamseast ne variety of ways in which the dering on anger, about living with pancreatic cancer The prices, of course, are offputting: $20 for the Dorn book (23 poems over 35 pages), and the other two are $15 each. The quality of the product, both physically and poetically, no eT , Idaho. Three new Limberlost chapbook can be good. Each poem in Se the collection reports a physical detail that reveals some unstated emotional discovery. The woman who doesn’t merely accept but revels in large feet, or the mother who realizes that her son is, like her, a mixture of emotions, including sexual attraction, are the discoveries we make every day, and fo- man (Del Rey) 10. The Wide Window. Lemony (HarperTrophy) ing “Coors can/ half buried in the duff/blackened tin foil/ fire pits, gasoline bleached roots. . .” is Hy consistently published so it” 3. Fire. J.K. Rowling (Scholastic) 4. The . can see.” In “Pull-top” he reports see- girls are attracted ies sank woes to leave one on the back/ of the 0. ellowship of the Ring. J.RR. Tolkien (Ballantine) which, of course, rican poetryfrom dying. Andfew publishers have Granite gives way to sheer sky, blue air chipped by white peaks/ far as we If there's a complaint to be made narrator talks about something quite personal:“I'm told by my good friend-/ who left her husband for solitude-/ she can’t survive without/ breast implants.” The most revealing line is “I Ayneri, that word is never used) that “four summers I worked various jobs up and down the Sawtooth valley [in reaching a crest: “no more mountain./ a The chapbook helpedkeep nor angry. They are snapshots. They report to us what the poet saw during In “Steel Mountain,” he writes of — remorse that her feet are “the widest most people have ever seen,/ peasant argue an hour with her.” This poem is feet I am proud of,” and concludes less aboutthe friend's needs than the with a small utterance of that pride: narrator’s. All these poems are about, “homeliness hiding/ a life/ of ideal in one wayoranother,a need to playa beauty.” rau seme caringrole in the In “Thirteen,” she lives of others, writes of the sur. the Introduction, the poet “saw the Idaho], from river guiding to cabin building to hauling gear into the backcountry.” a eaptres, $20 ~ the variety of ways in which the chapbook can be good. pages in this chapbookreflect a sort of interior minimalism, a subtle understating ofemotions thatreflect a careful selection ofdetail. In one poem, “At 4.1st to Die. James Patterson (Warn- i (Knopf) 8. Stone Monkey.Jeffrey Deaver (Simon & Schuster) 9. The Passion of Artemesia. Susan Vreeland (Viki of poetry — a around for centuries, but it achieved a Nancy Takacs. The 11 poems in 23 (Doubieday) 2. The Summons. John Grisham ) 3. Widow's Walk. Robert B. Parker 4. 2nd Chance. James Patterson (Lit tle Brown) 5. The Secret Life of Bees. Sue Monk Kidd (Viking) 6. Jonathan Fran- Limbertost Press, $15 pamphlet-size coliection — has been Jennifer, (Dorn died in 1999) writes in cancer as ‘environmentally/ Induced and politically generated.’” David Beisly-Guiotto's 15 poems in Sawtooth Country are neither subtle By Nancy Takacs; The best is Pale Blue Wings by 6. ricone (Warner) _ 7. 9-11. Noam Chomsky(Seven StoHardcover Fiction 1, Atonement. lan McEwan DS rect statements, sometimes bor- and chemother. apy treatments. The first poem, intensive(letterpress) enterprise with understand the significance of our Over-rated,” “The Dull Relief of General Pain — Oxycontin, Rosicodone and Codeine in General,” “Therapy Bombardiers.’ In “Linear Acceleration,” we are told “urologists are/ basically daily experiences. hippies,/ chemotherapists/ are just cusing on them helps the rest of us doubt justifies the prices, which of course are determined less by quality than by the fact that this is a labor- Consider “Trust,” in which the misled mystics.” As his widow, small press runs — 350 to 650 copies each. Are they worth the price? Well, the Takacs collection borders on excellent, and all three are worth reading. Martin Naparsteck reviews books from and about the West for The Salt Lake Tribune. Wedding Gift Giving Made Easy feeeee. 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