MATING SEASON

by Kate Gale

Kate Gale's work reverberates with a conscious passion. For her, language is a way of conveying the raw anguish that is underneath the surface of all living, the violence that occurs behind closed doors, the way human beings claw for survival. These poems hardly float on an ocean, they are down there in the ocean's depths where big fish wait for smaller ones and where life was born.

Genres: Poetry

70 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

About the author

Dr. Kate Gale is managing editor of Red Hen Press, editor of the Los Angeles Review, and president of the American Composers Forum, LA. She was the 2005-2006 president of PEN USA. She is author of five books of poetry: her most recent, Mating Season, from Tupelo Press; a novel, Lake of Fire; and Rio de Sangre, a libretto for an opera with composer Don Davis. Her most recent projects include a co-written libretto, Paradises Lost with Ursula K. LeGuin and composer Stephen Taylor, and a libretto adapted from Kindred by Octavia Butler with composer Billy Childs. Her new poetry collection, Goldilocks Zone, will be released by University of New Mexico Press in February 2014. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

Reviews

[Andrew Shutes-David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murky poems of the sacred and profane. //

storylike, sparksome, vexing //

poetic mentions of sex, violence, abuse //

4.0: 3.3, 4.8, 3.3, 4.0, 4.0 //

The Prisoner's Wings, Brewer //

My instructions guide him to escape
from his cell through the maze
to a certain open window.
The thing he has to do is build wings.
The wings are eleven feet long
and built entirely of light particles.
They have the effect of drowning out darkness.

SUMMARY // 3 ADJECTIVES // WARNINGS FOR KIDS // RATING: SETTING RATING, PLOT RATING, CHARACTER RATING, WRITING RATING, IDEAS RATING // MY FAVORITE POEM, MY SECOND FAVORITE POEM // EXCERPT FROM THE PRISONER'S WINGS

[Sarah Pacholski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Gale brings emotions and experiences to life that people try to submerge. The confusion, the hurt, the intimacy, the truth. It radiates through the poems she shares in this book!

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read! Gritty poems with teeth about life in small town America with all the interwoven characters & place: the cat named Loan Shark, Newton's Bar, & of course Jesus. She has poems that grapple with god that are truly unique perspectives: kites & malls. In the prose poem "Dominoes" she writes, "I invited god over for dinner to talk about/wrestling. She helped me rub the chicken with paprika and lemon. We/agreed on a wine. We ate rice. She told me her grandson pays the blues in/a tavern over on Fourth Street We played dominoes into the night/Black, and white falling over and over in little heaps. That's god. Not angry/over small things. Not worried about stupid people. Just amused." Notice how the cover hotel sign looks suspiciously like a cross! I especially enjoyed many of her prose poems.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something disturbingly soothing about the voices in Kate Gale's poems. Like a voice coming through the wall at 3am that knows exactly what you've been doing in there with the shades down. The poems in this book are not rough, but with few words they toss you around the room pretty good. I normally only read poetry a little bit, from time to time, but this one I sat down and savored each poem until I found myself on the last page. It just kept pulling me in an pushing me away again and again. I didn't want to stop reading, but I suspect that I couldn't have if I had wanted to.

[Shannon Pogue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strong, gritty and heart-wrenching. Kate's poems will have you thinking about them for days to come. The characters and emotions are so life like I felt them as my own.