Larger than Life
Amazon.com | FIVE STARS
This may not be a very big book, but it's one of those deals where peeking inside reveals a whole new dimension. Kat Ricker skillfully regales the reader with those little details of life that most people take for granted, and whether in poetry or prose, she gets straight to the heart of the matter. This is no book of flowery verse, or pages overflowing with verbiage, yet in its simple language it manages to say volumes.
There's a section on "real life magic", where the author deals with unusual things in normal settings. In Ricker's world, a hank of hair becomes an object of wonder, and a mythical creature a pain in the tail. In another piece, the dream of catching that elusive foul ball is put into stark perspective when your daughter is asleep in your lap, and the final and most powerful poem in this chapter hits it home that you can't recapture the feelings of youth.
The aptly titled section "Cameo Drawer" holds the treasures of the book, with a series of little stories of ordinary people in different situations. There's the cobbler who gave up his craft to work in a lumberyard, the tale of the walnut harvester, the stranger on a bus. One of the best pieces in the book is "Mattie's Orchids", or maybe that honor should go to "Box Closed", or perhaps "Last Dance", but I'll let you be the judge of that.
Showing her funny side, the author channels her inner biker-babe in "The Burial of Wild Bill", which she claims is "based on actual hearsay", and then launches into the saga of "Mrs. Strandedisle" and her independence day. Finally, there's a section titled "Fancy This", which is made up of a tiny little poem and a pair of fanciful fantasy tidbits.
This one's a keeper.
