City Heat: Stories and Poems
Publishing House: Park-Art Publishing
WorkNameSort: City Heat: Stories and Poems
Self-published collections of ‘stories and poemsâ?� are the bane of many a book critic. With so many ready-to-exploit ‘publishersâ?� out there with no standards beyond ‘Did the check clear?â?�, the number of unbelievably awful books crossing the transom has increased exponentially in the last few years. It’s still easy to spot the crackpot conspiracy theorists and the ‘one person’s struggle with `insert clichéd hardship here`,â?� but the search for a gem of prose or poetry is much harder. That, you see, requires a bit more time with the book, time which is too often rewarded with work that ranges from horribly unimaginative and poorly written to just plain sub-mediocre. In other words, it’s a rare-to-never occurrence that sees a self-published book turn out to be well-constructed and engaging, and, sadly, even those books are being read under the presumption of awfulness. City Heat, a freewheeling compendium of various works by local author W.B. Park, is the exception that proves the rule. It’s a playful and highly readable gathering of poems, short stories and rudimentary illustrations that demonstrates considerable imagination and, more importantly, a good deal of compositional ability. Though he flirts with being a jack of all trades and master of none, Parks blithely switches between free-form poetry and intricately crafted stories in a fashion that’s anything but lazy. Many of his themes ‘ Florida tropes, the mystical ‘othernessâ?� of jazz, vaguely noir-ish adventures ‘ are well-trod by other authors, but Parks’ surprisingly malleable style manages to make each piece a winner worthy of far more attention than his entrepreneurial approach will garner him.
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2006.