Life and Death Times (a Review of Poplar Hill)

Review of Poplar Hill

 

“Another branch snapped on the tree outside as a sense of doom overcame her.” (Pg. 30 Poplar Hill)

The narrator speaks the mind of Catherine (“Kitty”) Stevenson, and the image could stand for her life. So begins a book with two timelines – one of the Nova Scotia of 1998/99, where Kitty lies gravely ill in Shiretown Nursing Home; and one on 1930s Germany, to which she travels into the Nazi hornet’s nest.

 

This is a tale of intrigue, deceit, danger, espionage, and living on the edge. One would think the contemporary times would serve as relief to all of that stress. However, in the hands of author, Steven Ramey Glines, the end of Kitty’s life is fraught with its own perils and moments of harrowing decision.

 

The tension between life and death seems always present with Kitty. Born into great wealth, she never feels entitled, probably due to the fact that her father, founder of United Coal Company, lost his fortune in the Great Depression. The family, forced to move into the caretaker’s cottage at their liquidated mansion, develops a sense that nothing is permanent. Kitty says, “The Depression and the War colored the rest of our lives, my whole generation. Prosperity and austerity are measured against the Depression and security against our experience in or, in my case, just before the war.” As her mother did before her, Kitty had been sent off to convent school for a childhood of withholding and discipline. But it is in the travelling there that her life attitude had come through, as she had to contain all her belongings in one valise. Later, when she packs for Germany, she takes a steamer trunk in posh fashion, but when she has to flee, she does so with only that one valise. That piece of luggage – the title of a chapter - is a bellwether of her life of plenty or sacrifice.

 

Kitty is a woman of class, although that means nothing to her. Her son, Jimmy (whom she insists on calling James) says of her, “Mom can tell the difference between a real Gucci bag and a Chinese knockoff but is perfectly content to use something she found at a thrift shop.” Notwithstanding, she never feels above or below anyone. She can fit into any situation and make it look so effortless, Jimmy explains. Her real test was shaking hands with Hitler. She’s in Munich, as are other young Americans, to spend her father’s money which is trapped in Germany. The Nazis will not allow it to be taken out of the country in any form, so Kitty and her circle of friends live it up with parties and endless liquor. This is also Kitty’s chance to attend voice school, which she could not at home.

 

Yet it’s not a story of spoiled rich kids whooping it up in a dictatorship; as we shall see this bunch – cell, really - take it upon themselves to be impromptu journalists and, indeed, spies for America, which is not yet at war. Reporting what they see on the streets during Kristallnacht, they are able to sell their reports to the news outlets and earn some of their keep.

 

The duality between hedonism and hardship turns into a travelling show, as the group actually escape the pressures of impending war by going on vacations in the midst of diplomatic breakdowns, such as setting out for Austria the day before the Anschluss. Foolhardiness? Probably, but that’s youth! Or else, it’s their way of cheating death, as Kitty proclaims in general, adding that the fall of 1938 was the most exhilarating time of her life.

 

A woman of great intelligence and courage, she also exhibits calculated nerve (and impudence) in appearing at a U.S. embassy party with likenesses of the Polish, French, and British flags sewn on the bum of her dress. Most nervy of all is that she assists in aiding a Jewish family in either surviving or getting out. Her resolve will come to a shocking conclusion with a great revelation at the end of the book.

 

You would think her departure on the very last passenger ship out of Germany in August, 1939 would cap the story, but the later chapters of her life test Kitty as much. Diagnosed with diabetes, causing two heart attacks, and finally organ failure, she must face survival and mortality yet again.

 

Glines interweaves the two storylines masterfully. For example, though Shiretown is a quiet provincial nursing home, there are moments there recalling the war. Her friend, Vince, lights a match by her oxygen tank – perhaps emblematic of the tinderbox of world war. And just at the point Kitty tells of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and therefore her inability to return to Germany, Shiretown closes due to a blizzard. In the same vein, James pushes the point that we wants his dying mother’s stocks early. Could that evoke the Nazis confiscating property? And Kitty thinks Heaven is a garden, recalling her sickly delirium in which she thought geraniums spoke to her. The reader will find that in Munich she determined whether the U.S. Consulate would stay open depending on whether its flowerpots remained. Flowers mean life, and singing means life. All she ever wanted to do was to sing like an angel, and Glines implies the day she does make it to Heaven may give her that chance that she never had in the Munch Opera.

 

Kitty lives by the idea of ‘L’Appel du Vide,’ the idea of going to edge of cliff and having the urge to jump, so you run away. She says she looks over the cliff at the end of her life but has no choice but to jump. The circumstances are beyond her control. What is not is her voice. The author states, “So long as she could tell stories, she didn’t need to look into the abyss.” With her resolve and powers of influence that voice saved lives, including her own, in war, and later shapes the town of Pictou to carry out an unusual request for Kitty and to afford her the dignity of a final story.

 

 

 

  

 

List of Venues Where My Poetry was Published

1. Verse-Virtual

 https://www.verse-virtual.org/search/search.asp?zoom_query=Stuart+Kurtz&zoom_page=1&zoom_per_page=10&zoom_and=1&zoom_sort=1

There are four pages there. I was a staff poet for one and a half years.

2. Poetry Quarterly

My poem is "Errands" 

https://poetryquarterly.com/poetry-quarterly-issue-24/

3. Sheepshead Review

My poem is "Do You Know Us?"

Spring, 2015, Vol. 37 No. 2, page 80

http://sheepsheadreview.com/issues/

4. Ascent Aspirations

Vol. 16, Number 10, October, 2012

My poem is "One Minute But Not For Silence"

http://www.davidpfraser.ca/fridays-poems.html

5. Carcinogenic

July 27, 2012

My poems here are "One Lasts," "For Your Information," and "Harmony of Opposites"

http://www.carcinogenicpoetry.net/search/label/Stuart%20Kurtz

6. Commonline Journal

My poems are "Our Lives on Wikipedia," and "My Curve"

http://www.thecommonlinejournal.com/p/contributors.html

7. Tanka Journal

Issue #2 

8. Parody

Volume 4, issue 2

My poem is "Give Peas a Chance"

Below two sites honor my mother, Marilyn Kurtz

9. Poetry Superhighway

I read on air "One Lasts"

Link to my mother's poems. She was co-poet of the week:

https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/?s=Stuart+Kurtz

10. Poetry Pacific

Autumn, 2015

My mother, Marilyn Kurtz, appeared with "Dance" and "A Painting by Barnet Newman (all red)

http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2015/11/2-poems-by-marilyn-kurtz.html

"Hey, Pete, There Must be Some Mistake"

My play performed over three nights at North Park Vaudeville in San Diego. 

 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Hey%2C+Pete%2C+There+Must+be+Some+Mistake

Short-form Copy. Three Published Restaurant Reviews in Not For Tourists

 

     Petsi Pies, Somerville. Map 28 Inman Square. Also Map 27 Central Square/Cambridgeport 

 

    This is no pie in the sky. It’s only the best pies around without your grandmother in the kitchen. Rene McLeod (Petsi was her childhood name) learned a lot of her panache from her Nanny Shields. If you can bake love into pies, Rene does it. The chocolate sour cream cake, for example, was her Nanny’s. The coconut cake is her own, though. Her signal pie is sweet potato. Mashed up bits of the humble tuber – just enough firmness, and not too sweet. The starchiness balances the sugar. The pecan pie is Petsi’s second celeb in the house. The nuts soak up the corn syrup to plump perfection. The blueberry pie is less sweet than most due to a mystery guest: cloves. Petsi’s crusts are never soggy. They do soak up juices but maintain body. And pies are not all. There’s a selection of savory tarts, such as the spinach, ricotta, and pine nut one. There are two locations. Petsi wields the rolling pin in Somerville, while some friendly dudes figure out how to cut pies into sevens out of Cambridge. That one’s a ten minute walk from Harvard Square.

 

    

 

     Gigi Gelateria. North End, Boston. Map 2 North End/Fanieul Hall

 

     There is a famous gelateria called San Crispino’s on the Via della Pannetteria near the Trevi Fountain in Rome that Romans are satisfied to make the centerpiece of their evenings out. The North End’s Gigi Gelateria can fill the homesick void of far-flung Romans. It’s the brainchild of restaurateur Frank de Pasquale (Umbria, Bricco), who lured two master gelato maestros from the old land to turn out tubs of the concoction in his basement here. But this is no boiler room operation. They churn out fifty flavors of sweet artistry. Dieters can relax. While ice cream has 16% butterfat, gelato here has on 2.5%, and this store uses no cream at all – only milk. The mix is churned more slowly for a denser product and is served at a slightly higher temperature for a softer texture. Cold tanks run about fifteen feet, with one stubby one capping off the shop at the sidewalk to entice the unsuspecting. Metal wells run 2 deep and 23 long. OK, so that’s 46 flavors. If only I had to calculate on this grid in math class! Zabaione, a custard flavor that reminds you of eggnog, is superb. Panna cotta is the Italian Crème Brule. Cassata Siciliana is ricotta, fruit bits, and chocolate chips. But my money’s on the melon. Bursting with cantaloupe flavor that’s somehow stronger than the fruit. It could keep a Roman in Boston.

    

    

 

 

     Donna’s Cakes. West Roxbury. Map unknown

 

     Ever take a bite of a cake and say to yourself, “Something’s wrong”? You know, the cake part’s fine, but the icing has that Oleo taste, as if it were made from rocket fuel (Twinkies actually once had a component found in such). Or the icing is fine, but the cake part is dry, like someone undid the stop and let all the air out. Donna’s Cakes gets cake and icing right. Synchronicity. The cake is moist yet firm, But the real standout is the icing. All butter cream. You can eat it by itself (I do).  Donna has been creating masterworks for 18 years. She started by taking a class in a cake-maker’s home. She did the same before opening this storefront in quiet West Roxbury. Give Donna an idea, and she’ll make it reality. Traditional wedding cakes to Big Bird. How about a beehive cake with bees swarming around the hive?  My four-year old cousin got treated on his b-day with a construction site. The toy bulldozer pushed a pile of dirt (chocolate cake crumbs). Now she’s doing computerized images into frosting.

 

 

CCAE New Plays Festival and my play, Forbidden