Andrew Benson Brown Tells History with Humor and Wit

Poetic History-Telling with Humor and Wit: A Review of Legends of Liberty Volume II by Andrew Benson Brown

 

Reviewed by Theresa Werba

 

Legends of Liberty II

Andrew Benson Brown

Bard Owl Publishing

978-1737551324

Released March 2024

$13.99 Paperback, 5.99 Kindle

265 pages

https://www.amazon.com/Legends-Liberty-Andrew-Benson-Brown/dp/1737551322/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

 

 

Andrew Benson Brown has created a continuation of his Revolutionary War historical mock epic in Legends of Liberty II.  This is a retelling of history which blends fact with absurdity in a way that is surprising and innovative. In the tale we are presented with a continuation of Revolutionary War saga, and we encounter such notables as Ben Franklin, King George III, Thomas Paine, and George Washington. We are also taken through a fresh retelling of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

 

Benson Brown employs 10-line stanzas with alternating rhymes and final rhyming couplet. The form is ababcdcdee in lines of iambic pentameter with an additional metric foot in the last line. It may thus be seen as a sort of “truncated sonnet” form.

 

Benson Brown makes history humorous and interesting, and the retelling of the story is never dry or pedantic. At times it hardly feels like what is normally considered formal poetry—it is very story-like and moves with a brisk and expectant pace. We are  reminded now and again of the funny and subtle rhymes and meter while reading an often-bizarre and surreal story. The historical mock-epic is overflowing with adroit rhymes and clever wordplay. Some of my favorite examples:

 

“Like a tree that sprouts full-grown 

From fertile soil, Ben sprung upon his heels 

And said with eager eccentricity, 

 ‘Eureka! I’ve discovered electricity.’”

 

“’It happens to us highbrows.’

She traced a yellow carrot round the brights 

Of yellow orbs: ‘What happened to your eyebrows?’”

 

“Immigrants all mutter grand 

Ideas as their ships approach the motherland.”

 

The rhymes eccentricity/electricity//highbrows/eyebrows //and mutter grand/motherland are quite clever indeed, and the entire poem is replete with such examples.

 

I particularly liked Benson Brown’s description of 18^th-century London from the eyes of the American Ben Franklin:

 

“Ben fumbled, squelching and meandering 

Through worming alleys snaked with London fog. 

A baron hounded whores, philandering. 

A beggar prowled in shadows, licking grog. 

A sooty urchin clawed loose pocket shillings. 

Shopkeepers hawked their goods with piercing calls. 

A gang, jaws bare, tore loot from their fresh killings. 

Through haze, two folded wings—a dome?—St. Paul’s! 

This scene of lawless riot and confusion 

Exposed the lairs that darkened majesty’s illusion.”

 

I also thought the description of Franklin as a “human Tesla coil” to be particularly inventive, as is his depiction of the insanity of King George III as a man’s brain invaded by the devil in the form of a cockroach!!!

 

“One day as Britons cheered their sovereign’s sight, 

The devil crawled into his servant’s brain. 

He entered through the ear as a termite 

And caused poor George the Third to go insane. 

His Majesty’s gray matter had a tang— 

Dis nibbled reason’s overlooking terrace. 

The walls of speech fell next when yellow fangs 

Went chewing on the pars opercularis. 

Then recall’s fortress, breached with just a scamper, 

Flapped like a tent when Satan bit the hippocamper.”

 

A particularly beautiful stanza involves repeating phrases and lines, rendered skillfully to poignant effect:

 

“The salt sea parts sweet lives from lovesick skies. 

No motherland can stop tectonic shifting. 

Connect the dots, or stars will fade from eyes: 

A tree of broken branches slowly dies, 

While crowns, well-pruned, stay healthy and uplifting. 

The salt sea parts sweet lives from lovesick skies 

When the sunset sails below the waves, to rise 

Tomorrow, as the last ship darkens, drifting. 

The salt sea parts sweet lives from lovesick skies. 

Steer true: connect the dots, so stars don’t fade from eyes.”

 

 

The book is replete with illustrations which enhance the reading experience. The images are often surreal and Python-esque. Terry Gilliam would be proud!! The print edition, unconstrained by the rigidity inherent in Kindle formatting, inventively incorporates these illustrations and images into the formatting of the stanzas to pleasing effect, which complements Benson Brown’s metrical experiments and text layout.

 

The extensive annotations can be clicked on with the Kindle edition to provide extra elucidation and clarification.

 

            I would highly recommend Legends of Liberty Volumes I and II as supplements and enrichment to any American history course taught at the high school and college levels as well as anyone who enjoys satire and humor combined with deftly-written poetry.

MORE ABOUT THE POET

 

Andrew Benson Brown is a poet and journalist living in Kansas City. He is a member of the Society of Classical Poets, where he regularly contributes poetry, essays, and reviews. His work has been published in a number of journals. He is also an arts columnist for the Epoch Times and a history writer for American Essence magazine.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER 

 

Theresa Werba the author of eight books, four in poetry, including the newly-released What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse (Bardsinger Books, 2024). Her work has appeared in such journals as The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Spindrift, Mezzo Cammin, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, The Art of Autism, Serotonin, The Road Not Taken, and the Society of Classical Poets Journal. Her work ranges from forms such as the ode and sonnet to free verse, with topics ranging from neurodivergence, love, loss, aging, to faith and disillusionment and more.  She also has written on autism, adoption and abuse/domestic violence. Find Theresa Werba at http://www.theresawerba.com and on social media @thesonnetqueen.

 

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog 

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's #AuthorsHelpingAuthors service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in the right column of this blog home page (a silver and gold badge and threee silver-gray circles beneath it. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author and veteran educator, she also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing HowToDoItFrugally http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews. Pre-format the post editor for each new post. Cancel Save Post published

The Magnum Opus of a Master Poetess

The Magnum Opus of a Master Poetess: A Review of What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse by Theresa Werba

 

By Andrew Benson Brown

 

 

What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse

Theresa Werba

Bardsinger Books

978-0965695503

Released April 2024

$12.95 (Paperback) $6.99 (Kindle)

217 pages

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0965695506/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FbAFQVKkgMID7MrxbQT47p6i9QURU1mLEtGd5P1IDbHDVvu15phoqGiF5wLE_Yh8AaH1pBtTyX0UZE8F0OwQrg.xkTLvkI8kwJ8yTe-aVjN09MwWiXo9WWtou9U1oxa0Tk&qid=1713008651&sr=8-1

 

 

 

In What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse, a magnum opus decades in the making, Theresa Werba reveals how the calling of poetry is infused into the very being of the writer. Werba is no mere scribbler of verse. In her list poem, “Poetess,” she catalogues the panoply of emotions that go into her vocation, beginning with:

Thinking, feeling, surging, trying,
Contemplating, dreaming, dying,
Resurrecting and creating,
Finding, telling, speculating…

           Theresa is considered one of the living masters of the sonnet (a fact which another reviewer has pointed out). I would point out, in addition, that she joins the likes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Edna St. Vincent Millay as one of a handful of women in history to have become expert in this form. She does not confine herself to the sonnet, however. This collection is full of wondrous variety of forms, including some high quality free verse.

           Poems are organized thematically: creativity, love, the mind (about dealing mental illness), poems about people (some historical), her ‘other’ vocation as a professional singer, biographical poems, aging, and (in a fitting finale) her spiritual life.

           Sometimes a poem is included in one section that might well be in another. One might think the sonnet “For John of the Cross” would go in the section “Pantheon” with other historical figures, or perhaps in “Ever Towards Uncertainty,” the section of spiritual poems. But no. Werba slots it into the section “My Mental World is Overloaded,” devoted to her experiences with neurodivergence. It begins:

It was five years of darkness. I was dead
But barely breathing, living hardly; lain
About the marble slab. It was my bed
Where I would live, if life were sleep.
Heart slain Of all feeling— empty, absent, gone—
Was beating only, but no heart therein.

           We realize, of course, that this poem is as much about the poetess as the author of “The Dark Night of the Soul.”

           In the ballad, “A Formalist Poet's Lament,” Werba captures her approach to writing verse:

It saddens and perplexes me,
The things I hear of late,
Of how to create poetry,
And how to make it “great”:

I've heard it's not emotional,
It's nothing how you “feel;”
But it's entirely rational,
Not heartfelt in appeal.

           “For nature poems are fine and good,” she says a few lines down, “But what about the soul?” The soul is, indeed, what separates the true poet from the poetaster or AI program.
           It also might be said to be the theme of every poem here, whether hidden or overt—both in the general sense of ‘soulfulness,’ and also (we find later) in a more conventionally religious sense as well.
           Werba pulls out all the literary devices, often employing these in a mimetic way that reflects her theme and subject matter. In ‘Sonnet of the Hardened Heart,’ for example, parenthetical descriptions are enshelled within the details of her thoughts on erecting barriers of emotional protection:

Care less, I warn myself; bother no more
With inner crevices: prying the shell
Like scabs (rough, oozing, sore), which crust, but tell
Of tumults against the psychic seabed floor;
It is in vain. Swollen and hard around
The meat (like newborn skin, or the vaginal flower)….

           Werba belongs to that limited class of creatives who are adept in more than one field: in this case, music. Poetry and music have long had a deep connection, and her dual skills interpenetrate here. This section appropriately contains several actual songs, complete with instructions for performance. In “The Classical Singer’s Drink Offering,” we are invited to experience secondhand the ecstasy of music, which approximates both a sense of drunkenness and (as in the biblical passage from Numbers 28:7 that the title references) of spiritual inspiration. The closing stanza reads:

But after the heaves and pants, the shimmer, the ring,
The chill-bumps in the hairshafts, when my blood
Has leapt and circled corpuscular gamuts, filling
My mask with heat and sound, a kind of thud
Percusses my environs. I turn around
As if to see Him watching.
Oh, to face
Not loving half so much my very sound,
As Him for whom this pouring out took place.

           In “Venus and Adonis,” a long poem of over 100 lines, Werba demonstrates a capacity for extraordinary sensuality:

I see her standing there.
Ringlets of curls cascading down
Soft shoulders
Onto the copious breasts of pearl and alabaster.
The curls unfurl longer and longer,
Shining and reflecting like circle rings
The sun which hits them.

She walks, tall. Her feet bare and white,
Painted with lilies and grass.

The mountains in front of her
Are billows of soft escape,
And how I wish I could
Bury myself in them,
Taste and touch them,
Suckle them and know them,
Honor them and find them
Again and again.

           The uninhibited quality of passion that fits well with the spontaneity and irregularity of free verse, and I must confess that of all the varieties of this form, I enjoy the topic of love most. I shared this poem with a lady friend of mine, and she LOVED it. “So beautiful and raw,” was her impression.

            Werba’s ability in the spheres of both formal and free verse is reminiscent of some of the early modernists like Eliot, Stevens, and cummings, who moved to free verse styles after acquiring a deep familiarity with formal verse, allowing them to develop a unique voice and subtle structures. While Werba does not engage in the radical grammatical experiments of a cummings, her skills also reflected in several nonce poems—verses written in no named, congealed form, skirting the boundary between the formal and spontaneous.

            In the final section, we encounter a series of poems engaged in deep spiritual reflection. One of the most impressive in the collection is “The Supreme-Breasted One (El Shaddai).” A poem of praise as well as philosophical and personal reflection, it has an irregular structure, with stanzas of varying line length and number, as well as an irregular rhyme scheme:

The woman in my Father’s face
The ruach of my soul
Male images have hid the shad,
The breast, that El Shaddai has had
To comfort those, who wounded, have
Quite never been made whole.

Born anew? Yes; a birth it is—
But only from the pronoun “His”?
When earthly form so plainly shows
That woman is in what seed grows
And germinates, and procreates?
And she, whom Comfort has made flesh
To show His less, nay, more than “manliness”:
That He is really also “She”—
A femininity in Trinity?

           After five more stanzas, Werba, having assimilated an expertise for different forms, ends the poem with a couplet:

Now delivered, life from Life is come:
O feed me, fill me, Supreme-Breasted One.

           As a master of the sonnet form, Werba is particularly adept at ending her poems with a powerful two-line punch like this. Its unexpected appearance as the closing to an ode makes it all the more effective.

           The poems discussed and excerpted here are only a slice of the rainbow this collection contains. It is well-organized (and elegantly formatted): beginning with personal reflections on creativity and eros, we move through history, life, and finally come full circle into the realm of the spirit—all while never ceasing to be personal. In terms of both diversity and depth, Werba is both a poet for our time, and for all time.

MORE ABOUT THE POET

 

Theresa Werba the author of eight books, four in poetry, including the newly-released What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse (Bardsinger Books, 2024). Her work has appeared in such journals as The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Spindrift, Mezzo Cammin, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, The Art of Autism, Serotonin, The Road Not Taken, and the Society of Classical Poets Journal. Her work ranges from forms such as the ode and sonnet to free verse, with topics ranging from neurodivergence, love, loss, aging, to faith and disillusionment and more.  She also has written on autism, adoption and abuse/domestic violence. Find Theresa Werba at www.bardsinger.com and on social media @thesonnetqueen.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

 

Andrew Benson Brown is a poet and journalist living in Kansas City. He is the author of Legends of Liberty, a mock-historical poetic epic. He is a member of the Society of Classical Poets, where he regularly contributes poetry, essays, and reviews. His work has been published in a number of journals. He is also an arts columnist for the Epoch Times and a history writer for American Essence magazine.

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog 

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's #AuthorsHelpingAuthors service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in the right column of this blog home page (a silver and gold badge and threee silver-gray circles beneath it. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author and veteran educator, she also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing HowToDoItFrugally http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews. Pre-format the post editor for each new post. Cancel Save Post published

TALES2INSPIRE ~ THE JADE COLLECTION: Celebrated by Jorge Barboza

TITLE OF BOOK: TALES2INSPIRE ~ THE JADE COLLECTION

CREATOR, EDITOR, AUTHOR: LOIS W. STERN

GENRE OR CATEGORY: MEMOIR - ANTHOLOGY

REVEWED BY: JORGE BARBOZA

ISBN #:   979-8858240747

REVIEW:

Amazing & Exciting Stories

If you're searching for exhilarating and genuine narratives designed to plunge you into the core of turbulent waters, steer through hazardous paths, track down distant relatives worldwide, or traverse in a self-constructed car from South America to Detroit, this publication will undoubtedly enchant you. Granted the opportunity to examine and appraise numerous stories therein, I encourage you to undertake this

REVIEWER’S BRIEF BIO:

I am a writer born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, in 1981, with a deep appreciation for my country's culture and Latin American history, which serves as a constant inspiration for my writings. As a young child, I cherished moments spent in a hammock by my grandfather's side, where he would regale me with stories while gently rocking me to sleep. His storytelling focused on the extraordinary achievements of ordinary individuals, and this narrative style has influenced my own work, aiming to provide readers with an uplifting, well-crafted, yet humble experience.

REVIEWER’S FAVORITE LINKS: 

https://tales2inspire.com/from-machicos-to-detroit/ 

ASSURANCE TO SATISFY COPYRIGHT LAW: 

 X Yes, I have received permission from the reviewer to reprint their review in its entirety. 

REVIEWER’S BYLINE: Author, Screenwriter

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER:

In 2007, I was fortunate enough to win a Latin Grammy as a producer for the best music video, which opened doors for me to pursue my dreams in the USA, where I relocated in 2008. Since then, I have had the honor of receiving recognition for my screenwriting, including being named a finalist and semifinalist in esteemed festivals such as Hollyshorts and Raindance

________________________________________

MORE ABOUT LOIS W. STERN AND HER TALES2INSPIRE PROJECT:

Lois W. Stern's Tales2Inspire was a kernel of an idea that started in 2012 and has grown to proportions even she didn’t dare to envision. Her innate curiosity about potentially fascinating human interest stories was the spark that ignited this idea. But it was the confused state of traditional publishing that propelled her forward. Tales2Inspire delivers exactly what it promises as both an ‘Authors Helping Authors’ project and a contest. Winners get their stories published in print, e-book and some even in video formats, with their names, headshot photos, and mini-autobiographies included. Then she spreads the word about the winners and their stories on her blogs, social media and monthly newsletter. FREE to enter, this is a great competition for talented newbies and seasoned authors alike.  Learn more here:

Tales2Inspire website: https://www.tales2inspire.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/tales2inspire2

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/tales2inspire

LinkedIn profile: http://tinyurl.com/odtw2wt

Get a FREE Tales2Inspire Sampler book at: www.tales2inspire.com/gifts

Tales2Inspire trailer: https://youtu.be/FuDgXkYMHvo

Blog: https://www.tales2inspire.com/blog