Comments on: Dancing in Odessa

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:39:03 +0000

@ Latricia - the video has some great illustrations and is very well done.I just think that a lot of foreign policy we simply do not know and understand. Its easy to point fingers and there definitely are some bad decisions being made by by large I think that our leaders do carry our well being on their shoulders and deal with the responsibility quite well. I too hate to see any form of bloodshed and I think the current government is much more diplomatic in finding peaceful resolutions. - Adam

By: Latricia Adil

Latricia Adil — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:49:17 +0000

Shutting down military bases and ceasing to deal with other nations with threats and violence is not isolationism. It is the opposite. Opening ourselves up to friendship, honest trade and diplomacy is the foreign policy of peace and prosperity. It is the only foreign policy that will not bankrupt us in short order, as our current actions most definitely will. I share the disappointment of the American people in the foreign policy rhetoric coming from the administration. The sad thing is, our foreign policy WILL change eventually, as Rome’s did, when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted. Watch the Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o71pAJMhQLo

By: Catherine Daly

Catherine Daly — Thu, 12 May 2005 20:11:00 +0000

I can’t review this book since I share a publisher.

I would like to mention, though, perhaps a key to understanding the reception of this work (right now, I’m reading the poems much differently than Victoria or Ray have, but I won’t get into that) is understanding the reception of Marc Chagall.

All best,
Catherine Daly
cadaly@pacbell.net

By: Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang — Thu, 12 May 2005 17:22:00 +0000

I found Ray McDaniel’s review very interesting and I greatly appreciated his perspective, I ultimately disagreed with it in many ways. I found the trope of dancing in Kaminsky’s book bold and full of risk-taking and the way I thought about the book was entirely different. In fact, I found much of the language in Kaminsky’s book to be quirky and original. And I found the idea of hope, sentiment, sincerity, etc. in his book original in our world of irony.

This book is filled with genuineness and earnestness. In a world of irony, standalone genuine emotions can seem inauthentic and insincere, accomplishing exactly the opposite of a poet’s intent. Kaminsky is successful in his earnestness because he juxtaposes unabashed genuineness and hope (often using large concepts and words) with humor, specific and sometimes imaginary quirky and original metaphors and/or images.

In the first poem in Kaminsky’s book, “Author’s Prayer,” and the one mentioned by McDaniel, for example, Kaminsky opens the poem with an unoriginal (and grammatically incorrect) phrase: “If I speak for the dead….” The concept of speaking for the dead is hardly original and clich

By: Abe Louise Young

Abe Louise Young — Thu, 12 May 2005 16:43:00 +0000

Dear Editor,

I am grateful for the review of Dancing in Odessa composed by Ray McDaniel. I have been waiting for someone to shine a light through this flimsy, over-celebrated book of poems.

If it would cheer Mr. McDaniel to know he is not alone in his estimation of Kaminsky's flaws, I was in a graduate creative writing class in which 9 out of 10 readers had a similar trouble with the shallow tropes, dancing and others. What a publicity campaign Dancing in Odessa has to live up to!

Thank you, Mr. McDaniel, for lucidly and specifically analysing the book's failure to realize its ambitions. It's a breath of fresh air.

Cordially,

Abe Louise Young