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Poetry Book Reviews
No Distance Between Us: a journey in poems
By Marianne Peel
Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2021
86 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1945049200
Review by Candace Armstrong
Be prepared to travel to Lesvos, Israel, Ukraine, Nepal, China and finally Close to Home in this book of free verse soaked with vivid detail as the poet takes us on her journey to uncommon tourist places. The descriptions of the people she encounters stand out in the reader’s mind long after the page is turned.
So the title is apt because she artfully tells us there really is no distance between us in this mostcolorful and interesting human family. Touching poems from the Kara Tepe Refugee Camp inthe Lesvos section highlight the poet’s ability to make personal connections such as in The Manand His Words (p. 7) which begins:
I wanted to hold the hand
of the man who wrote English words
on his palm, that he might know
layers of meaning, the underbelly
of each word.
In The Courtyard, in Nepal, is a beautiful tribute to her farewell from the Blind School with a song from Lakshmi. The poem ends:
We don’t need light to see
We don’t need light to hold one another,
shadow to shadow, singing our way
through the absence of light. (p. 29)
Most of the poems are set in China where the poet taught, and my favorite is In Your Country which ends with the poet saying her students gave her a Mandarin name meaning:
a songbird that sings through the fog
a skylark carrying melody
like breadcrumbs or seeds
between the hinges of a broken beak. (p.35)
Saturday Night At the Symphony, Close to Home, describes the sweet rapture of a poor woman’s improvisation of a conductor as she listens to a symphony she can’t afford to attend from the steps of her fire escape on Saturday nights.
She arabesque her way up the fire escape, took flight
among stars, pulsing to the rhythm of her improvisation. (p.48)
These are only short examples of the moving language in this collection. The reader is filled with a genuine sense of connection as the title implies and, speaking for myself, the images expand inmind even more after each reading. Marianne Peel’s heart for both people and poetry can be felt on every page.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Candace Armstrong writes in the beautiful woodlands of Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. She joined Illinois State Poetry Society in 2013 and has published several poems as well as short stories and one novel, Evidence of Grace, self-published in 2021. She enjoys gardening, reading, dog-walking, cooking and of course, writing!
Posted July 1, 2022
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Aquifer: Poems Evoked by Water
By Ellen Sander
Red Bird Chapbooks, 2022
St. Paul, MN
35 Pages
Review by Lois Baer Barr
It turns out Ellen Sander, a poet from Maine, was a peripatetic rock and roll chronicler who has written about the Stones, Eric Clapton, John Lennon and Yoko Ono and many other icons of the sixties and seventies. Her poetry, however, takes a very quiet turn away from steel guitars, drum sets, and amps. Her poem “Gymnopédie” is a wistful nod to Erik Satie’s haunting compositions. Her allusions to other poets reveal Sander’s subtle poetic sensibility, for example, the sparseness of haiku, as well as the work of Robert Creeley and Wallace Stevens.
The metaphor of the title suggests that we as readers will have to dig below the surface to find what we seek. The search is fulfilling. Sander’s work is evocative and musical. Her poems reveal themselves bit by bit provoking a rise in pulse rate or a stirring in your gut when she explores feelings you have had but could not describe. The poems deal with water of all kinds: drops of dew, scalding hot tea, tidal waters, the sea as final resting place of Egypt Air Flight 804, the seascapes painted by her father.
Poet Claire Milliken states that Sander’s poetry is “especially attuned to time.” I read this book in one sitting, and I must say that time stopped for me. The collection begins with an evocation of dawn, one that is not at all rosy fingered. The last poem is “Day’s Final Hour.” A simple cup of latte, when sipped with a friend, can stop time. Or time can explode as it does in her elegy to her friend Euan.
All of a sudden, a flight to Quebec
and that night the sheets lay
against the Serengeti of your chest
moved with the sirocco of your breath
We ransacked the shimmering plains
your monsoon thunder fading
At first reading this stanza seemed out of place with the rest of the book; however, it reflects her experiences in the sixties and seventies, especially the raucous globetrotting and sex.
The most striking and original feature of her poetry is the unusual punctuation. The commas in some of the poem titles seem misplaced or strange. “Water, folding” or “outing, This” are notable examples. In another poem, “water over water,” the comma may be a single drop of water or a metaphor for the saving grace of a single word, if it is the right one. In “day’s final hour” the poem starts with a comma. And two other lines begin with commas.
, grace
notes a dusky
shadow cat
suddenly
In the poem’s final stanza, the poet sits alone. The comma is a metaphor for a stitch to mend a coat, a soul, a world.
, winter
coat in lap
, I
thread in hand
mending
Also innovative is her placement of words on the page. Her most unusual spacing is for a “barn jacked by rain” the divisions of lines, spaces, even words taken to their smallest element, that is spelled out letter by letter, suggest the crashing force of water in flood. In a poem about an island in a storm, the empty spaces surrounded by words evoke the whirling waters engulfing the island.
Sander’s language is rich and inventive but not daunting. Her first poem is called “daybreakage,” a noun I intend to borrow to mean those mornings where you are never fully awake, and everything goes awry. Haiku is used as a verb. She cites Pascal in French and two of her titles are in French and German. I knew the meaning of Licht, (Iight). “Coucou,” I learned from Google, is an exclamation in French that serves as a playful “hi” or “hello.”
I highly recommend this collection not only for the poems, but it is a joy to behold with its beautiful cover, font, and paper. It is hand sewn and numbered with a little swan on water sketched on the last page.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Lois Baer Barr has published chapbooks of fiction and poetry. Tracks: Poems on the ‘L is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press where it placed fourth in their New Voices Contest for 2021.
Posted June 1, 2022
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Blue Flame Ring: Collected Poems
By Tinker Greene
Poltroon Press, 2022
110 Pages
ISBN-10: 0-918395-38-0
Review by Jacqueline Stearns
Blue Flame Ring is an eclectic buffet, offering readers a wide range of subjects including loss, subsequent grief, friendship, house sitting experiences, interspersed with house cats, nature, music, and travel. The book is a patchwork of chapbooks published together in one volume.
The title poem talks about the author's backpacking trip through the Sierra Mountains. Greene faces a sudden snow squall. He is forced to choose one of two paths, think Robert Frost. His options are a chute, or a high route over a rock slab. Greene chooses the chute. He descends and finds a hole in a rock and spends the night there. Greene realizes he's battled the forces of nature and won!
Grenee shares the grief he and his wife endure when their son is killed. They also lost Greene's brother the following year. I sympathize with the loss the author is dealing with. In 2002, my family lost my father when his car was hit by that of a drunk driver.
Part 2 of What I remember About 2002 describes the call letting Greene know his brother is not long for this world. He talks about the drive to the hospital to be at his sibling's side, only to arrive too late to communicate with him. While My Brother Was Dying, describes Greene waiting in the hospital, monitoring his brother's progress. My family and I were at my father's side for thirteen days. On the thirteenth day we lost him.
What I Remember About 2002, part 5 depicts Greene and his wife dedicating a memorial to their son, a grove of trees in Big Basin Redwoods. The grove is a retreat for them to visit with their son, honoring a beloved person through nature.
Greene is a generous poet sharing the stage with other artists. Good Evening by Philippe Soupult, is the first poem readers see when they get past the title page. Slightly Blurry Window, appears on page sixty and was written by Giacome Leopardi in 1819.
The reader is taken to a time of relative peace and reflection when Greene shares a stop gap in his life, housesitting for a friend.
Some of my favorite works detail the adorable antics of house cats. Sleeping Cats, Los Panteros, and A Morning capture the personality and spirit of Greene's two cats.
Music played an integral role in Greene's youth. Hoagy Carmichael Reminiscing About theCornetist Bix Beiderbeke Indiana 1920's, gives readers a birds eye view of two great musicians jamming. The Five Spot is about a Manhattan jazz club Greene hung out in when he was young, listening to Thelonious Monk. Greene wonders if this is the part of his life that has impacted him the most.
Greene shares the good and the bad about travel. What I Remember About 2002 part 8 talks about a frightening time in Mexico. Greene left his cash at the SRO checkpoint. What I Remember about 2002 Part 1 recounts a romantic trip to Quebec.
No matter the location Blue Flame Ring is an amazing journey from beginning to end.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Jacqueline Stearns holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Media Communications from William Paterson College now University. She is honored to have been published in Highland Park Poetry and several Montclair Write Group Anthologies.
Posted June 1, 2022
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Mile Markers
By Tom Moran
Cyberwit.net
36 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-81-8253-839-9
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with kind persmission from Quill & Parchment
As I opened my heart to Tom Moran’s excellent debut collection, a saying by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) came to mind: “A poet is someone who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words. This may sound easy, but it isn’t.” Heaney, arguably one of the greatest poets of recent times, is known for the lyrical beauty of his poems and their plain-spoken truth about everyday life. Bullseye!
Growing up in the rough neighborhoods of Chicago’s suburbs, Moran puts readers “in the game” of his life. From the get-go, Heaney was right. Tom Moran feels things deeply. This is poetry’s first requirement. Moreover, words do not come easy for this poet. I sense a certain struggle here. That is, he wrestles with his writing. Again, Heaney, This may sound easy, but it isn’t. That is why these poems are good poems.
As I worked my way through the book, I stopped cold at “Each Dawn.” I was reminded of what my mother told me to do on cold and windy days:
I walk backwards
in the wind
to shield me
from the cold.
Walk backwards
against my poetry,
hide from raw truth.
Walk backwards
from a sunrise,
to drown
in the carpeted night.
I turn,
face my words,
walk across a field
of unwritten poems.
Here, the poet struggles in his psyche: the irrepressible need to “walk across a field / of unwritten poems.” As Mile Markers so poignantly illustrates, Moran’s backward walk into the wind is a journey of growth. It is a journey of learned poetic depth. “Google Maps” reflects on childhood experiences where, as a child standing on the corner of “Stoney Island Avenue, / he raced across eight lanes of traffic / to get to kindergarten.” This took no small of amount of courage. In the same poem, I experience, “how my stomach tightens / walking through a viaduct.” And,
the warm bakery I took harbor
on winter mornings walking to St. Felicitas,
looking for my place in this louder world.
Ah! The aroma of fresh bread and raspberry scones reaches my nostrils!
Moran is no stranger to darkness. “A Gift” is a haibun. The poet exploits this form perfectly using prose to describe the death of his friend Mike. Mike’s life ended at age fourteen when he walked in front of a train. Other friends made a suicide pact. Another died by an overdose of heroin. There are more. But through the darkness, life emerges as an inexplicable gift:
People fly off the potter’s
wheel as wet clay.
God molds a humble mug,
grace sustains the firing.
I return to Heaney, This may sound easy, but it isn’t. I get the feeling that Tom Moran has seen a lot of life. I sense poetry to be a key to Moran’s understanding of life. Wallace Stevens once wrote, “Poetry is a response to the daily necessity of getting the world right.” I don’t know if Moran is familiar with Stevens’ aphorism of not. But the ending of “Moonflower,” a tribute to the poet’s wife Christine, shows his depth of understanding:
We are two raindrops
folded into one;
wait on the day when we’ll realize
Jesus has everyone’s eyes.
We are bits pulled from sourdough batter,
set aside to add to the next batch
to keep the recipe alive.
Mile Markers has nourished the recipe of my life, keeping its nutrients evermore fresh, evermore alive.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted June 1, 2022
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apparitions
By Amelia Cotter
Highland Park Poetry Press, 2022
54 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-0578343310
Review by Pauline Kochanski
Amelia Cotter is a prolific writer, poet & storyteller with a number of history and poetry books to her credit. The collection of haibun and haiku in “apparitions” is a personal journey that exposes Amelia’s thoughts, feelings and fears in an open manner that keeps her inner critic at a distance.
Haibun is a Japanese form of writing which includes prose or a prose poem and a traditional Haiku. Haiku are three-line brief poems generally with a focus on nature. The lines are broken down in syllables, the first line is 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables and the third line 5 syllables. Since Japanese and English are markedly different in syllabication and construction, English versions of the structure were developed; American Syllable based 5-syllable, 3-syllable, 5-syllable or in the 3-word, 5-word, 3-word basis.)
The format of haibun was first used by the haiku master, Matsuo Basho in 17th Century Japan and one of his best examples “Narrow Road to the Deep North” clearly represents one of the main requirements in traditional haibun - combining travel writing with prose. Though the pairing of the prose and the poem can be related in direct or indirect ways, the haibun is not always about a physical road travelled.
The writing and reading of poetry can transform our lives in a manner no other writing form can achieve. It allows a sense of peace or it can pull us out of a reverie into the sun, the wind and the realities of life. Poetry grants us a method of accepting the harshest of realities and make them accessible. Bringing “apparitions” alive is what Ms. Cotter has accomplished in her haibun and haiku. Allowing something remarkable or unexpected to arise.
Even in her fear, she has power and self knowledge which becomes evident in the writings here. Many single lines speak loudly to the triumph and losses of life. How to traverse the insensitivity of others and the attempt to release that which does notn support the best in us.
A single line from “The Second City,” says so much about feeling that the reader does not need to know more.
Embracing life feels at times impossible.
In the following haiku (and many haiku are not titled) Ms. Cotter reveals her ability to see what she is doing at the time she is doing it; an accomplishment of self preservation and self knowledge.
Itch
Of old wounds
I pick myself
Apart
And finally the one called “Hibernaculum” reveals the truth of where ever we go we are always with ourselves.
My weapons come with me everywhere I go.
I am ready for the fight, come lightness or weight of days.
spring thaw —
the barren ground swells
beneath a billowing sky
Fears, anxieties and feelings that Ms. Cotter exposes are personal to her. By expanding these individual personal sentiments beyond herself she allows these emotions to reveal themselves as universal. Her personal words and thoughts manifest into broad reaching essential primal feelings.
As a reviewer I bring my history and reason to evaluate the written or visual art presented. The emotions and feelings, so deeply embedded in these haibun and haiku made my initial reading difficult. Though, after additional readings of these works the personal emotional difficulty of the many feelings represented diminished.
I found a fellow traveler who is one of those artists that grants permission to speak personal truths publicly.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Pauline Kochanski is an exhibiting artist, writer, teacher and meditator.
Posted May 1, 2022
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Doctor Poets & Other Healers: Covid in their Own Words
Editors: Thelma T. Reyna, Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., and Johanna Shapiro
Golden Foothills Press, 2022
130 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-7372481-0-1
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with kind permission by Quill & Parchment
About life, poet-physician John Keats wrote: “Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.” It is fair to say that Keats (1795-1821), himself dogged by illness (tuberculosis) throughout his short life, was conflating life and poetry. As the poems and essays contained in this volume demonstrate, poetry is a conduit for experience. As co-editor Thelma T. Reyna avers in her preface, “Let us listen to their voices. Let us hear their broken hearts and see their tears.”
Let us hear, indeed. During this season of immense suffering I felt the pathos expressed in these poems and essays. Few would deny that America and the world are only now emerging from a scourge we pray will not return. Division, uncertainty, and skepticism have wrapped America in a cloak of cynicism. If there is one thing that struck me about Doctor Poets & Other Healers, it is that each of these frontline soldiers care about people. They are not about political division. They are not about blame-placing. They are about healing.
What They Witnessed
“In Praise of Home School,” by Anna Dunlap, highlights one of Covid-19’s most controversial outcomes. An excerpt:
Some say shelter-at-home is a wasteland
of boredom bathed in cathode rays
of ruminating on things long hid—
slackened bonds of coupledom,
slender reeds of habit,
how family depletes us.
Dunlap’s poem develops the grim reality of isolation. She gives a rabbit social distance as she walks. She reflects on her childhood . . . when “time / was a pleasure to kill—swaying / in a hammock of faded quilts.” This wise poem delivers an in-depth message that “home-schooled” this reviewer’s heart. Don’t miss this one.
“Life from the Other Side of the Tray,” by Pamela Shea, moves from the “intrigue” she once knew as an OR medical assistant to the grim reality that now, her husband, “who usually stands tall / now looks small on the table, pale and barely breathing.” Shea is now on the other side of the surgical tray. This compelling poem has a powerful closure.
How They Were Impacted
Jo Marie Reilly felt an overwhelming sense of futility. Reilly, a gifted writer, pours forth her heart in the essay, “In Need of a Prayer.” After helping patients in dire circumstances as she can, Reilly trudges homeward at 1:30 a.m., more dead than alive herself. As she motors away from the hospital the radio blares “The Prayer,” by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli . . . the lyrics seem a fitting commentary:
When we lose our way
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we’ll be safe . . .
Rodica Stan, is a Ph.D., in biochemistry, from Romania. An accomplished poet, Stan captures impact in her sobering poem, “Status Update”:
I am healthy. Sanitized. Masked. Vaccinated. Alive.
My tears collect in empty espresso cups,
As I mourn my father’s death, alone, asphyxiated,
As I fear my mother’s death, alone, across
An ocean and two continents from me.
There is COVID everywhere;
In the space among us, them, all . . .
In filtrating the air, our intellect,
History, death, and the earth that inters us.
S.O.S.
How They Responded
In her moving prose narrative, “Preventing the Scarring of the Soul,” Dr. Lorna Rodriguez-Rodriguez writes about the grief she felt as her sister Raquel risked her life caring for Covid patients in Spain. During the chaotic period when PPE were in short supply and treatment protocols were changing hour-by-hour, Raquel died. A pall of unspeakable grief descended like a shawl on Dr. Rodriguez. Her story about witnessing the impact of illness on others underscores the overriding truth about our healthcare warriors: They are a people for others. They are people who give their best even when they have nothing left to give. Out of the emotional ashes of Raquel’s death, Dr. Rodriguez rose to a doctor’s ultimate height: the unstinting care of her patients.
In “Grateful for Time,” Dr. Shannon Zhang, writes of a patient, Ms. W. Diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer, Ms. W. was weary of seeing so many doctors. She “just wanted to be left alone.” In the succeeding weeks Zhang began developing a friendship with Ms. W. This happened amid the frenetic atmosphere of Covid care. At a juncture when improvement signaled discharge, Ms. W. grew worse. Surgery was performed. In the aftermath, her patient, whom Zhang had grown to love, began to decline.
“Despite my head running with the “to do’s” of that day and her unwillingness to engage in conversation with me due to fatigue, I stayed with her as she slept peacefully.”
“During my last day on service, I greeted Ms. W. one last time, leaving her room before she could see my tears. I thought back to my first day with her and how I hastily swept out of her room to accomplish my tasks. Ms. W. reminded me about the humanism aspect of medicine: sitting by her side when she was lonely, removing excess bandages to make her more comfortable, and spending a few extra minutes with her even with the m any other things to complete that day.”
As I read through the wonderful poems and essays contributed by these 29 gifted healthcare professionals and writers, I wondered how to end this review. I needed look no further than the tender heart of Dr. Shannon Zhang . . . a heart shared by each contributor.
Editor’s Note: Co-Editors Thelma T. Reyna, Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., and Johanna Shapiro have included photographs and extended biographies of each contributor. These bios testify to the broad spectrum of professional backgrounds and literary expertise that make this volume standout in the ever-growing library of Covid-19 literature.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted May 1, 2022
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Art Work
By Terry Allen
Kelsay Books, 2021
101 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1954353107
Review by Ally Frank
Terry Allen’s Art Work Poems is a book of various styles and lengths of poetry, all connected by the base image that is ‘art’. Not only does Allen refer to written art, he dives into fine art mediums, playwright, dance, and many other styles of art and their relation to life, love, connection, and history.
Even within the first section of the book, it is made clear to the reader that art has played in big role in Allen’s life, a fine example of this being the poem Name that Dog on page 23. The book itself features specific works of art from all points in history, giving it a very fluid pace and cluing the reader into the statement the book wants to make: that art is one of the most important foundations of life.
Terry Allen references that art can be not only a personal interest, but a conversation starter among those who are separated fundamentally, inferentially claiming that everyone can relate to art and that art is what connects all of us.
The book features more traditional poetry, but also some monologue-style pieces, which I think provides a nice balance in the speed of the read. I would venture to say some of my favorite pieces in this book are of this style. More specifically, I very much enjoyed both Latin and Happy Endings, which can be found on pages 57 and 58, respectively. Both of these I found to be very relatable and understandable, even as someone who does not enjoy traditional mediums of art as much as this book may require you to. I found that they put forms of art that everyone knows of in a way that everyone can relate to. I found that Latin even covered some of the personal reservations I had about the book. It covers how the language of Latin is viewed as only ancient and religious, not having any relevance to present-day life, but then brings up things such as Suduko, trivia and Harry Potter, all of which can be enjoyed just a bit more with a basic understanding of the language. I found that this book was directed towards those who love art, all forms of it, which is a demographic I do not find myself in. I did not relate to the parts of the book that stressed how art can be a conversation starter or how important it is to learn about historical art, simply because it is not an interest of mine. However, like Latin proposes, there are certainly many benefits to having a basic understanding of this topic, and I feel as though this poem allowed for a lot of relatability for readers who may be in the same boat as me.
Overall, I enjoyed the cadence and connectedness of this book. I found it to be a nice paced read and I loved most of the language choices. I, however, being someone who does not share Terry Allen’s love and passion for art, did not find it relatable, which is at no fault of his. I would recommend those who love looking at, studying, investigating and exploring different styles and time periods of art give this book a read.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Ally Frank is an 18 year old poet who currently has two books out. Her books, “late night thoughts & all the things i never said” and “telephone line” are both available for Amazon. She is currently a high school senior who will be attending Purdue University in the fall to study psychology and American Sign Language/Deaf Studies. She has been writing poetry since the age of 11 and published her first book in November of 2021.
Posted May 1, 2022
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A Dreamless Night: The Selected Chinese/English Poems of William Marr
By William Marr
Chicago Academic Press, 2021
258 Pages
ISBN-13: 9798761154803
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with kind permission by Quill & Parchment
Of the great Chinese poets of history, Du Fu, (712-770, Tang dynasty), arguably was the greatest. Although this description may apply to many, I use the reference here simply to highlight that William Marr, like Du Fu, seeks to build bridges. Du Fu made poems out of the cloth of everyday experiences, bridging the commonplace with the profound. This is what good poets do.
William Marr doesn’t look for subjects about which to write. The subjects find the poet. Witness his latest collection, A Dreamless Night:
The poems are presented bilingually with the Chinese and English texts on facing pages. I found it fascinating to imagine which Chinese letters fit with their English counterparts. Thus, a bridge of fellowship is formed through language.
With seeming ease, Marr provides a multitude of crossings for his readers. Whether you favor nature poems, or poems about history, faith, family, birds, animals, endangered species, or the bricks and mortar of city skyscrapers and the people who inhabit them, A Dreamless Night has a poem for you.
Marr’s economical use of language is instructive. There is time-worn cliché: Less is more. In this poet’s case “less” is exactly right!
I want to display this “less is more” feature through several examples:
Story
The dog has her eyes closed
but the old man knows she’s listening
Her warm back is moving
closer and closer
Notice how simple life occurrences become occasions for poetry. The crisp diction and lack of punctuation strip out everything not pertinent to the poem. This is a hallmark not only of Dreamless Night, but of Marr’s poetic canon.
Another example:
Bird Cage Again
Open
the
cage
let the bird fly
away
and give
the sky back
its
freedom
Not only is this a prime example of language economy, but its message illustrates situational irony. Marr is a master of this technique. At first reading I assumed that “freedom” was a reference to the captive bird’s release. However, the poet surprised me! The typographical technique of extra line spacings increases the “open air” effect conducive to the poem’s freedom theme.
I appreciate Marr’s ability to bridge the visible outer-world of nature with the conflicting inner-world of human experience. Even when one is emotionally undone (which your reviewer often is) nature offers consolation:
This Little Bird
Having a cold
fighting with the wife
blinded by the sun
excuses are abundant
Yet this little bird
sings the morning
into gold
Personification takes center stage in:
Snowfight
crying a cry of joy
a snowball
whizzes toward you
it lands right on the bud
waiting to bloom
on your beaming cheek
The poet’s bridge between sound and emotion, while commonplace, is made fresh and palpable in:
Rainy Season
Over and over
repeating always the same old stuff
drip drip drip
chip chip chip
O how desperately we long for
a deafening thunder
or an overwhelming shout
SHUT UP!
In poem after poem, I heard my inner voice whispering, “Yes, yes, you know what is being said, you have experienced this.
Marr builds a bridge to romantic tenderness in:
Sharing an Umbrella
Sharing an umbrella
I suddenly realize the difference between us
Yet bending over to kiss you
gives me such joy
as you try to meet me halfway
on tiptoe
Who among us hasn’t been there? Who among us cannot imagine such an intimate moment? This is part of William Marr’s genius. A moment becomes the summation of a lifetime. Thus the power inherent in poetry.
There is virtually no important topic untouched in A Dreamless Night. Marr’s treatment of death is cryptic but effective:
Old Woman
Like a worn-out record
the deep grooves
on her forehead
repeat and repeat
I want to live
I want to live
I want to
One of the profound casualties of our dependence on manufactured power sources is brought front and center in:
Blackout
a powerless night
when people suddenly noticed
the existence
of the moon
and stars
While the poem “Blackout” carries with it a touch of irony about modern necessities, the abiding value of A Dreamless Night, for this reviewer, is exactly the opposite of its title. This seminal collection points to a world long neglected: a world wrapped in the shawl of truth and love.
Something to dream about in the light of day.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted May 1, 2022
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Underground River of Want
By Kathleen Gregg
Leah Huete de Maines, 2021
27 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-64662-599+4
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with kind permission from Quill & Parchment
I have always marveled at how seeming randomness returns later to infuse life with meaning. Case in point: Kathleen Gregg’s lead poem recalls how she felt on a fateful day when paramedics strapped her dad onto a stretcher for transport to the hospital. The distraught family holding fast to each other, as the radio blares, I wanna hold your hand.
The collection: Underground River of Want.
The poem, “January 1964.”
Not long thereafter . . .
A cold tug of alarm shivers
through my body. My sister gathers me in.
Unasked questions are swallowed, churn
in my stomach for one terrible week. Until,
the dreaded call from mom; a bedside
summons that wrenches
the two of us from sleep.
This excerpt from “January 1964,” which channels the Beatles classic, sets the stage for a thin volume of poems which is thicker than blood with emotional depth.
One of the purposes of art is to serve as a “rudder” during tough times. When seas are rough the goal is not to capsize the boat. Underground River of Want, is ample proof. I sense that Kathleen Gregg understands this. Without poetry the ship of her life founders.
“Loss” is a key theme for Gregg. Through a series of losses the poet invites us into the surging sea of her father’s death, sexual trysts, and her failed marriage. These amputations become the source of growth within her suffering.
I am moved by the poem, “Father-less.” Without her father to tell her “No” she is in want of an emotional compass when a boy’s eyes say, “I will touch you.” This poem is of central importance. The collection’s title finds its meaning here. Still in mourning, the next several poems explore the emotional vacuum left by her father’s loss.
It is important to note that poetic form plays an important role here. The poems early-on feature gaps in word-spacing and erratic indentations. This is purposeful writing. Gregg’s use of form represents how she is feeling . . . she is showing a disjointed life. Her pain is expressed through poetic form as shown in this excerpt from “Heartbreak is a Winter Wind”:
it blows like the downward lash
of a whip on bare flesh
deep sting
lacerating hope
“Heartbreak” uses powerful similes to underscore the depth of heartache:
it blows like the fat flat of a palm
shoving you backwards
it blows like the stiff straw
of a broom.
The dust of love is swept away.
With an adult daughter of my own, I too, know what it means when someone you love has lost the North Star that she needs.
The first 12 poems set the stage for a subtle shift in the poet’s fortunes. The remaining 9 poems gently raise the curtain on light. The venetian blinds are opened with a slight pull of a cord. The turn occurs in the poem, “Sometimes Freedom Is a ’93 Dodge Shadow:
Boxy, khaki green, low-end model
fully equipped
with rolldown windows,
with one of its keys permanently stuck
in the ignition,
and with two years left on the loan.
I call it my consolation prize
for losing at marriage.
But damn, that Dodge is everything
My ex-husband is not.
I wanted to jump up with a “High Five”! At this point, there is a change in both tone and form. By tone, the feel of winter’s unrelenting chill is replaced by hints of lightness, tinges of hope. By form, erratic word and line-spacing is replaced by coherent, steady stanzas and couplets. Form is steady because the poet is steady. Life is different now.
There is one good reason for the changes described above. However, if I reveal it, I wouldn’t be doing my job as a reviewer. The best I can do is this quote by Willa Cather (1873-1947), “You must find your own quiet center of life and write from that to the world. In short, you must write to the human heart, the great consciousness that all humanity goes to make up.”
This is what poets do. This is what Kathleen Gregg does.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted April 1, 2022
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Mapping A Life
By Susan T. Moss
Antrim House Books, 2021
74 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-943826-92-6
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with kind permission fro Quill & Parchment
Finding one’s way around country sides and cities is relatively easy these days. GPS systems have made travel simple. From faraway galaxies, an exceptionally large eye surveys the universe. Then a soft feminine voice tells travelers which way to go. Before such genius became commonplace, I was forced to depend on the almost-universal eye of my wife. She was great with maps. Even if the map was wrong or out-of-date, she always got us to our destination. In her new collection, Mapping a Life, poet Susan T. Moss, loves maps. More importantly, Moss loves life and revels in the journey.
Readers get a clue from her epigram by Richard Jefferies (1848-1887), “Give me fullness of life like to the sea and the sun.” Jefferies, author of The Story of My Heart, possessed a delightfully curious mind. He loved nature and wrote and traveled extensively exalting in nature’s wonders. I sense that Moss dwells within Jefferies’ exuberant shadow. Like her spiritual mentor, she lives, writes and travels within the “fullness of sea and sun.”
Divided into four parts (without headings) readers discover life-themes grouped within each division. Part I sets the stage for experiencing nature’s wealth within the long stretch of time. The collection’s lead poem, “Mapping a Life,” offers a perspective:
Sometimes it’s like that: the kind
of journey when I walk
where deer prints mark a path
fringed with scallop-bottomed
mushrooms and speckled stones—
a microcosm of beauty and solitude
at each bend and in every breath
that reminds me I am not even
halfway to anywhere
with so much to examine, hold onto
before the urgency to repack
for life’s next destination, another place
to meet myself at the still point.
Moss’s clear-eyed observations about nature translate and apply to life. It has been said that the outer visible world of nature is analogous to the inner invisible world of human beings. Moss exploits this truth throughout Mapping.
The creations in this section, and throughout, employ luscious language. The poems invited me to join the steady march of time and memories. In “Swimming Freestyle with My Mother,” Moss recalls her mother’s pantry when the peaches were gone; she partakes of the fruit of her mother’s memories and her “sea” of wisdom.
In “Redwoods” her devotion to time is evident. Moss gets a glimpse of eternity “standing / among giants.” In this and other poems, “light” emerges as a significant theme. “Skyward,” avers, that “Even the tallest buildings / can’t hide shafts of light / seeking canyon floors / now mostly deserted.”
Poems such as “Along the Way,” and “Late August,” provide vibrant depictions of color and seasonal progression.
while watching for other changes—
the instant when all meet
at the juncture of past
and future as an infinitesimal
thread connects us
Part II bids us join Moss as intrepid travelers to Moscow, China, Africa, Spain, Japan and more. At each stop, the poet’s eye for detail and historyinform her writing. Moss has done her homework. “Notes on Moscow,” reveals a study in contrasts and how oppressive governments behave when they are afraid of freedom:
citizens who start their day waiting
for the proclaimed existential threats
while we all sleep with one eye open.
“Nippon Memories” is a must-read four-part gem that spans the decades from post WW II to contemporary times. It is a land much different now than when:
My father brought back other
mementos from Occupied Japan
like the cloisonné jars and lacquered
bowls, ivory netsukes and chopsticks
from Kyoto that filled a glass cabinet
in the living room.
On language and style, I would be remiss if did not note the precision of Moss’s verse. This is a mature poet. Her language is vivid and lush. Her diction is nicely paced. She has that special knack of choosing the right word that moves each poem forward.
Parts III and IV sustain the momentum established in parts I and II. Themes of time, light, and the beauty “of sea and sun,” come full circle to “Traveling Light”:
All the indispensable maps
and guidebooks have expired,
heavy luggage expelled
to a basement corner
with Grandmother’s trunks
from eighty years ago,
and I am left wondering
what might happen
if I were to travel
with only the shirt
on my back and nothing
to burden what’s left
of the journey.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted April 1, 2022
For a personalized copy please contact the author: stm48@hotmail.com
My Body the Guitar
By Karla Linn Merrifield
Before Your Quiet Eyes Holograph Series, 2021
155 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-7328840-6-9
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with kind permission from Quill & Parchment
In the acclaimed 1995 movie, Mr. Holland’s Opus, music teacher Mr. Holland (played by Richard Dreyfus) is mentoring a student learning the clarinet. The student can’t seem to get the hang of it even though her teacher has tried every technique in his teaching toolbox. In quiet desperation, Mr. Holland asks the student to imagine the most beautiful scene she can. The student describes the scene to her teacher, who then replies, “Play to that. Immerse your whole being into that beautiful place.” The student then plays a lovely melody much to Mr. Holland’s admiration.
I thought about that movie and that scene as I prepared to review Karla Linn Merrifield’s new collection, My Body the Guitar. Without a doubt, Merrifield knows something about giving herself wholly and totally to the promptings of poetry and music. I might add, she knows something about love. She would, I’m certain, join the chorus of voices who affirm that without love, the arts are a futile enterprise.
My Body the Guitar, is presented in three divisions: “Part 1, Mere Mortal,” features a series of Études. An Étude is a piece of music played for the purpose of instruction in technique. These are fascinating poems that link the poet’s body in direct relationship to her instrument. “Part 2, Local Heroes,” pays tribute to folks within the poet’s inner circle who influenced, motivated, and taught her through the years. “Part 3, Mighty Gods,” honors a virtual pantheon of great guitarists (by my count, more than 18) which provide a delicious smorgasbord of artistic range and depth. I was delighted to recognize Jimi Hendrix, Tom Petty, and Eric Clapton listed within Merrifield’s gallery of gods.
A Word about Form and Style
Craftsmanship has always been a hallmark of Karla Merrifield’s work. The instant volume highlights the poet’s skills in free verse, pantoum, sestina, double-fibonacci, sonnet, haiku, tanka, abecedarian and more. All of these, mind you, are orchestrated in a symphonic score that delights eye, ear, and heart. “Gentle Weep,” (Preface) sets a tone that provides a clue to the poet’s life. A life in which her body, music, and poetry become a single being.
I don’t have much longer in the playing fields of love.
So when he looks at the tip of my ring finger and sees
under the bistro lamp a nascent callous he perceives desire.
All I do is metaphor, the still g-string pressed
again, again, again, in B minor’s third position--thus my hand
remembers what my body learns of its embodiment.
I am the guitar. Play me now.
“Sonnet from the Bar,” (featuring experimental “riffs” on the traditional form), is representative of the poems comprising “Part 2, Local Heroes.” Merrifield is clearly appreciative of early influences on her life and what she would become as a professional writer and accomplished musician.
In the church of the Golden Lion Pub, we tipplers of Hogshead and Guinness, we supplicants of rock ’n roll music make a joyful noise unto the spirit of guitars electric.
We sway to the bluesy riffs, throb to the reverb and loop, tremble like tremolo strings, our souls fiercely plucked, our hearts softly fingered.
For here live again the lesser gods of distant youth: O, Clapton; o, Santana; o Richards; o, Waters. As the Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Gibson gently weep, my litany goes long and on into rhythm’s font of Time.
I am the ’60s love child I once was re-amplified, praying that the mythified chords within abide.
I recall attending the Illinois State Fair in my youth, (circa 1960s). At the time I was part of a 4-piece rock ’n roll band. My idol was Lonnie Mack, arguably one of the finest blues players of all time. Mack played a Flying “V” guitar. I was mesmerized by his hit recording of Memphis. Those long-ago musical memories returned to me as I enjoyed “Part 3, Mighty Gods.” My heart was stirred as I read poems conjuring some of the greatest musicians ever to play. If you have a favorite musician, it is a good bet that you will find a poem attributed to him or her.
Songwriter Harlan Howard is credited with the now famous quote: “Country music is three chords and the truth.” While My Body the Guitar covers the whole range of musical genres, and musical greats, even more importantly, Karla Linn Merrifield is about the truth that inhabits her life and her body, the guitar.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted April 1, 2022
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Sand and Salt
By Sheila Elliott
Independently Published, 2021
29 Pages
ISBN-13: 979-8473355222
Review by Carol L. Gloor
Sheila Elliott’s chapbook, Sand and Salt, works in the fine tradition of ekphrastic poetry, that is, poetry based on a work of visual art, in this case Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks, a striking evocation of a late-night diner, with a man at the counter and some customers, all floating in a neon bubble in an otherwise dark world. I have seen the painting many times, but I deliberately chose not to look at it again when reading Ms. Elliott’s book, preferring to let her help me remember it and receive new insights into it.
Sand and Salt succeeds best in two ways: when it enlivens the painting and when it almost recreates the feeling of the painting using the poet’s own art, the art of words. The poet uses the painting as a basis for imagining the thoughts and lives of the people portrayed in it. The poet gets inside the head of the man behind the counter in her aptly named poem The Counter Guy atthe Café, the man who must pay attention to the “coffee urns big as silos,” but who still dreams of loving connection, “of tilting toward somebody/someday,” in the poem One Glass Unfilled.
The poet also evokes the inner life of the customers at the counter, specifically the woman,who muses “I couldn’t be much clearer with my sigh,” in the poem The Story She Later Told Her Friend. The poet does the same thing for another customer at the counter, a man who remembers “pot roast crisps before it starts to/ sizzle, simmer,” in the poem On the Quiet Man.. . . The alienation of the café floating in darkness speaks through the longing of those in that café, a longing for some kind of home.
But the poet does not just imagine from the painting; she also provides scenes of her own life in a painterly way. The best of these examples are poems of stasis, poems that create a clear, picture of a scene that one could paint if one had the skill. One of these is the poem Evocation, an image of two people on a bus, both watching “a city pass, sideways.” Another is On Turning69, a lovely shape poem in which age 50 is derided as “still half/-stuffed with youth and ignorance.”
Technically, the poems show some real strengths, but also weaknesses which could be corrected with close attention. The poet’s most impressive strength is her ability to make rhyming poems with the reader noticing it at all, as in the poem Many Years Later. And obviously, as discussed above, the specific imagery is extremely successful in many of the poems. The weaknesses of the poems are: overuse of simile, when the poet could easily speak the same words more directly; confusing punctuation, such as quotations that never close or inconsistency, that is, poems which are free of punctuation and then a sudden comma or period appears; and also, sadly, incorrect word usage, the words “Who’s” and “Discretely” being incorrectly used in the title of the poem On the QuietMan . . . The poet also needs to pay closer attention to line breaks, specifically those breaking a subject from its verb, particularly in poems where the first line is always capitalized. Punctuation and incorrect word use make the book appear unprofessional, but the poet can correct these issues in her next book, which I look forward to reading.
But these weaknesses are not fatal to the poet’s project, and Sand and Salt as it stands is a good read for a night when one is feeling lonely and needs to remember that is the human condition.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Carol L. Gloor’s poetry chapbook, Assisted Living, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013, and her full length poetry collection, Falling Back, was published by WordPoetry in 2018. Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, most recently in Gyroscope, and she is a member of the Chicago poetry collective Egg Money Poets.
Posted March 1, 2022
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At Work
By Joan McNerney
Cyberwit.net, 2021
27 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-8182537835
Review by Michael Escoubas
This is reprinted with kind permission from Quill & Parchment
Reading Joan McNerney’s latest collection, At Work, recalled my first day on the job as an apprentice printer in Bloomington, IL. As a youth of 17 years old, just out of high school, I felt more than a little intimidated in the world of men. The language, the brusqueness, the confidence of seasoned craftsman and me, barely shaving, never away from family and my small-town environment before. After a few days, I learned that these men, though rough around the edges, were gracious and helpful. They too, were once 17 and just beginning the rewarding enterprise we call “work.” For this young apprentice the “enterprise” lasted 48 years; printer was the only job I ever had.
The 21 poems comprising At Work include “everyday sorts of jobs.” Grocery cashier, housewife, retail salesclerk, waitress, delivery guy, and many more. These are poems which hit me where I live. I’m betting this will be the case for most readers. We are people trying to make financial ends meet in tough economic times.
For example, a waitress named Sally, “thought everything was / up to luck and she had zero. / Her chances got swept / away with yesterday’s trash.” // McNerney doesn’t sugar coat Sally’s life. At the end of the day after stopping to pick up a few groceries, she struggles to open her door . . . readers will be surprised at what greets her as she enters.
McNerney’s style is free verse rather than classical forms. She chooses words appropriate to her theme: folks living and coping with life through their jobs. Her poems appear in couplets, tercets, quatrains and other stanza variations. Rhyme is rare, but clarity and wisdom are hallmarks. I get the impression that there is no silver spoon in Joan McNerney’s mouth. No pretense or condescension. She has lived out her poems. This is one reason they are good poems.
One of the anomalies of our times is the rise of the “delivery” person as a major component on the current economic scene. We depend on delivery people, now, more than ever. In honor of this heretofore under-appreciated skill, I am proud to reprint “Delivery Guy” in full:
Ray comes all winter
with office supplies.
He calls female workers
“gorgeous”. Smiles
spread like wild fire.
Besides reams of paper,
ink cartridges, he carries
the sun. Says it fits perfectly
into his bowling bag.
Sprinting upstairs, balancing
boxes of staples, paper clips,
pens, Ray shouts, I brought
the sun with me today, slung
it right over my shoulder.”
He brings all day glow . . .
what they want on
those dark icy afternoons
to make them
feel sizzling warm.
Joan McNerney’s knack for highlighting the personalities of her characters is in itself, worth the modest asking price. The people which populate her poems are real and relatable. For example, the “Long Haul Driver” liked his job at first, but for reasons inherent in the job eventually, “Coffee was not enough,” the poem develops with a poignant ending that tells the “not-so-pleasant” truth.
This is a collection worth your time. In fact, I see this volume as a valuable text for the classroom. Why would I say this? Elizabeth Bishop once said of poetry, “There is enormous power in reticence.” At Work is a study in poetic restraint . . . equal measures of truth, honesty, and humility. Lessons any aspiring poet should acquire.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted March 1, 2022
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Shaded Pergola: Haiku and Other Short Poems with Illustrations
By EleniTraganas
Tropaeum Press, 2022
95 Pages
ISBN-13: 9780578311982
Review by Thomas H. Chockley
Eleni Traganas is an accomplished artist in many fields; musician, composer, painter, pen-and-ink artist, writer, and poet. In Shaded Pergola she brings her talent to haiku and short poetry. Traganas, in her preface, invites the reader to learn what touched her about Japanese haiku and Tang-era Chinese poetry. Shaded Pergola sets out to view life around her with that Asian attention to the small events in life that somehow add to the depth and meaning of that life.
Haiku poets are warned to “show; don’t tell” the images that make up the poem. They are most often composed of two images that imply a connection between them. Thus, the haiku engages the reader in looking beyond the images to understand how they hint at a deeper, more universal experience. The poems in this collection are gathered into a seasonal framework, as are many published haiku collections. Her pen-and-ink drawings that accompany the short poems they illustrate really resonate well to add a visual depth to many of the poems.
The title of the book also tells the reader that not all of the poems will be haiku. Some are senryu, a well-recognized form in Japanese haiku, and she explains that other poems are short poems not strictly in the haiku genre. She writes using the once typical, three lines and seventeen-syllable format in English-language haiku. As well, she knows that most haiku have no title; however, she has chosen to give titles to all but a few of the poems in this collection. Many haiku poets would take issue with using Western poetic conventions such as titles, capitalization of non-proper nouns, and punctuation in these poems.
Eleni Traganas is adept at the use of colors and flowers in her poems. “Love Letters: / I open your note / and out flitter purple moths… / just pressed violets” (p13) is a haiku with the twist of a love note containing pressed violets; yet, how interesting that on first sight, the dried blossoms seem more like purple moths. Another fine example, and with the accompanying drawing a lyrical haiga, is “Canticle: Pink break of dawn -- / early carnations and / song thrushes crooning duets” (p23). The line drawing of a bouquet of carnations adds a grand visual embellishment. At times, Traganas’s need to have seventeen syllables in the haiku – five syllables in line one, seven in line two, and five in line three – creates the risk of padding the poem with unnecessary words and straining the sentence flow. “The Gift: A lifetime searching / for my kindred soul: Look…a / butterfly alights!” (p33).
Here are two short poems that highlight Traganas’s elegant ability to describe flowers and early morning dew. “Crane Flower: Bird of Paradise / sailing on your orange boat / towards faraway lands” (p48) and “Baptism: Break of dawn: a sea / of liquid pearls ripples in / the sun – crystal dew” (p49). While the two poems do not adhere to the strict haiku form, they are nonetheless graceful short poems that fit well in the collection.
In the following senryu, she shows a fine and humorous experience every reader can relate to immediately; “Air Traffic: Low-flying jets on / this balmy August evening -- / whining mosquitoes” (p52). To her credit, Traganas does not always depict beauty in the world around her; “Conspiracy: Pitter-patter of / rainfall in the dead of night? / Just rats whispering”
Traganas has also included some ten pages at the end of Shaded Pergola that are earlier works of haiku poems on a theme. An example from September Haiku is the following untitled haiku: “Blankets hang and sway: /the scent of camphor vapors /cools the autumn air” (p85) and from Winter Haiku “The crunch of tires / on a crooked asphalt road… / meandering thoughts” (p90).
For the reader, Eleni Traganas’s Shaded Pergola contains an abundance of vividly expressed poems – glimpses of garden blossoms in spring and summer, of the redolent scent of tea in winter, and of the occasional intrusion of New York rats or mosquitos. It is clear to see the long-term impact that Japanese haiku and Tang poetry created in Eleni Traganas. She has an Asian sensitivity to the minutia of human experiences, of nature, and of seasons. Her collection of poems is an honorable homage to that Japanese and Chinese sensibility.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Thomas H. Chockley has had haiku, senryu, haiga, and haibun published in a variety of print and online haiku journals. His first chapbook is Personal Myths 1: Born in Mystery from Red Moon Press. His second book is Personal Myths: Numbers 2, 3, and 4 in print PDF and epub form from Lulu.com.
Posted March 1, 2021
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A Poetess' First Flight
By Carmen A. Cisnadean
Dorrance Publishing Co., 2020
97 Pages
ISBN-13: 9781644262443
Review by Emma A. Kowalenko
Carmen A. Cisnadean collection of poems, A Poetess’s First Flight, brings luminosity to the written word in lyrical and realistic terms. She describes emotions, nature, connections to a higher power, masterfully. At ease with the musicality and vibrancy of language, she brings our attention to various elements of life, including her own joys and her own losses. Her observer’s eye, ear, and mindfulness ever present, generously invite the reader to her world. Her world that becomes the reader’s world. She opens her compendium with Nikola Tesla’s quote, “It’s not the love you make. It’s the love you give.” Her, I’m Grateful for So Much (VI), with short, rhythmic lines, like the music she so loves, carry us to the gratitude we often forget to express. “I’m grateful … To you my audience…” she says.
She captures a writer’s sentiments in her mindful in Despite Not Having Fins (VII) which she begins with “What I write down on paper is only but a fraction…” as she persists in her poet’s mission, “Despite not having fins.” She continues with her transportive ocean imagery with Let the Mermaids Be! (XXI) when the moon punishes “humanity’s ungrateful ways” by snatching mermaids by their fins “coercing them to hide the stars.” Indeed humans have much to learn about gratitude for the precious gifts that our earth, moon, and stars bestow upon us.
She eloquently carries us to environments and worlds that she relishes. Her Letter of Tears to the Bald Eagles (XXIX), reminds us of a much-needed call to action regarding laws and provisions that do not stop senseless murders of fellow human beings. Eternal Rest (XXXVI) is a poignant reminder of accepting life’s effervescence and fragility as “we, ourselves, are but transient observers.”
In Under Chicago’s Stars (XLII), we travel with her, we “hear… the city’s restless ticking…” We experience the sights, sounds, the variety in melodies of life in every poem. As she does, in Oh, Darling, You!(LXIX), we too, willingly respond to “Just take my hand and dance me to this song.” Her poet’s sensibilities, love of music, communication skills, are all seamlessly woven in this engaging compendium of poetic reflections. Take the time to treat yourself to this variety of sensory voyages. Board this “Flight.” Enjoy, relish, learn, share.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Emma Alexandra Kowalenko is the author of From Apricots to Za’atar. Emma lives in Highwood, Illinois, is a member of the Illinois State Poetry Society and Poets and Patrons.
Posted March 1, 2022
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Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place
By Lucille Lang Day
Blue Light Press, 2020
113 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-4218-3664-5
Review by Michael Escoubas
This is reprinted with kind permission from Quill & Parchment
Being people of modest means, I doubt if my wife and I will ever take a world-wide cruise. We prefer museums and presidential libraries. However, after reading Lucille Lang Day’s, Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place, I feel no loss. With the poet as guide, I have become the very image of a peripatetic person. My travel brochure includes Mexico, Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands, a “rosy-fingered dawn” on the Aegean sea, Athens, Greece, Giverney, France (Claude Monet’s homebase), and many more.
The collection is structured in two parts: “Part I. Foreigner,” features poems about a particular place: San Pancho, in Nayarit, Mexico. “Part II. Between the Two Shining Seas,” highlights unique settings in America.
The title poem “Birds of San Pancho,” treats, by my count, 15 separate species. Among them the kiskadee, who is masked like a racoon, sings an exuberant song, and sports a yellow breast. Other stunning species include the yellow-wingedcacique, the golden-cheekedwoodpecker, the scrub euphonia, chachalaca, (whose song sounds like its name), orange-frontedparakeets and herons, egrets, and pelicans, all displaying a rainbow of colors.
Day’s sonnet “Fiesta” offers the flavor of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
All the stars switch on above the street
as fiesta music rises from the square.
Girls in sequined blue jeans tap their feet,
and jacarandas shimmy in their air.
Accordions, guitars, and trumpets sing
for people swaying on the cobblestones
in yellow, red, and blue embroidered clothing
and skeletons who shake their graceful bones.
But I will always be a stranger here
where roosters crow and church bells ring at dawn.
The language comes like birdcalls to my ear;
I want to dance, but I won’t be here long
Enough to learn the steps or even know
Where the dead stop jigging where they go.
Day, leaves San Pancho, to highlight birds in the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica. The country is home to “Resplendent Quetzals.” This poem describes the parrot’s striking iridescent green and red feathers. They “sit like gods, high / in an aguacatillo tree, surveying the forest:’’ Day’s descriptions of the forest populated with green and yellow-striped vipers, orchids, insects and other residents of this misty habitat, made me want to go there.
Moving on, Day writes about wildlife on the Galápagos Islands, don’t miss her poem “What the Tortoises Know,” (I was surprised to learn what they know; I should be that smart!). This poem also introduced me to the red-footed booby. This gregarious birds sports feet in a variety of colors including blue and yellow. While Day’s poems are full of delightful descriptions of a variety of wildlife, there is no mistaking the seriousness with which Day, a credentialed scientist, takes environmental issues that threaten wildlife globally. Her poem, “Global Warming in the Galápagos,” bears witness to her concerns:
Three years without rain,
and incense trees are gray, leafless
in what should be the wet season.
Without the trees, where will red-
footed boobies with blue beaks
build nests where fluffy chicks can hatch?
Even prickly pear cacti, looking so much
like clusters of spiny ping pong paddles,
are turning brown and dying.
What will happen to iguanas that eat
the cacti, and lava lizards that nibble
lice from the iguana’s necks and backs?
A warming sea also brings El Niño
with too much rain, flooding,
overheated currents where penguins
can’t find fish, and beaches so hot
that green turtle eggs can’t hatch.
When iguanas can no longer regulate
their body temperature, giant tortoises
and blue-footed boobies will gather
like refugees and strike out for cooler land.
Moving into “Part II. Between the Two Shining Seas,” the poet opens with a narrative poem, “Names of the States.” In it, Day shows the Native American background within the names of 30 states. I had to pause and reflect upon how little I have appreciated the debt owed to these noble tribes.
Poems in this section visit significant places such as Cape Code and Nantucket, “Near houses with gray shingles and white trim, / lined up on bluffs that overlook the sea.” We go behind the scenes at a museum in St. Paul, Minnesota, to visit a “whole vault of dinosaur bones,” and a “fossil tortoise, 350,000 years old.” There’s more. Day visits Red Rock Canyon, where scorpions live, some of them five inches long. We even learn about the “Corpse Flower,” at Berkeley Botanical Garden.
Throughout the entire collection whether set in “places” abroad or in America, Lucille Lang Day’s, strongest suit is love. She loves life. She loves people and family. She loves the environment and evangelizes for its health, conservation, and preservation. Reviewing Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place has awakened this reviewer to a heightened sense of “place” in this beautiful world.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted March 1, 2022
Dear Specimen
By W. J. Herbert
Beacon Press, 2021
92 Pages
ISBN-13: 9780807007594
Review by Kathleen Gregg
W. J. Herbert’s collection of poems, DEAR SPECIMEN, is both inspiring and unsettling. Her skill as a poet is especially evident in her masterful use of enjambment, form and double meaning to weave together universal themes of climate change, species extinctions, and her own personal tragedies – oftentimes within the same poem. Her language is elegant and profound, scientific and fascinating. And blunt, as in Errant Eagle, addressing extinct species trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits, “unlike us/you were/never to blame/for the pit, its making”. And in Tipping Point, warning of the decimation of so many animals due to “the greed/of fossil fuel producers”, and of those species becoming “Marvels archived in dust’s dissympathy.”
In describing extinct species on display at various museums, the narrator speaks with such eloquence and unexpected empathy. For instance, in Millipede, she calls it a “rippling sentence/with a hundred/periods/to punctuate”, perhaps wanting the reader to see these specimens in a different light, with her same awe. Yet, at the same time, there is an undertone of annoyance with the indelicate hands that study and display the specimens. This is particularly obvious in Speciesism: telling the viper, “someone’s/cracked your spine to coil/and jimmy you/into the jar; and the Aye Aye, “You would never have perched/like that”. Or in Cardinal, You Would Not Believe, the narrator laments “your bed’s a foam strip/to which you have been pinned.”
Some of the most poignant poems in this collection allude to the narrator’s declining heart, “a dinghy bobbing/wildly as the night/sea deepens” (Triage). In A Homo Sapiens on the Brink ofExtinction Speaks to the Fossil Mosasaurus, she muses, “you seem alive/& I’m dying.” And in Sea Lily, she asks, “Lily, why do we have so little time?” It is clear that the narrator feels an affinity with the specimens and fossils she visits, pondering how soon she herself will be “preserved/ and catalogued” (Dear Specimen). She has already endured the death of her father from cancer and her daughter’s several miscarriages, addressed in heart-rending poems. And now, her daughter is asking “for the impossible. They’ll cure you, right?” (After My Diagnosis,Sarah Asks). In Shanidar, First Flower People,the narrator balks at the idea of cremation. “No, lay me down/in that cave where/others were covered/with cornflower,/hyacinth, yarrow/& hollyhock./Leave me”. And maybe, “I’ll become as light/as he did that day,/between the time I closed my eyes/to escape his labored breathing,/and the moment after.”
All of these poems are defined by a tangible urgency. Time is running out for our planet, its species and for the narrator herself. Do yourself a favor and read this collection. It is timely, intelligent and unforgettable.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Kathleen Gregg is the author of The Underground River of Want. Kathleen lives in the bluegrass region of Kentucky and is active in the Kentucky Poetry Society.
Posted February 1, 2022
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Kindred Verse: Poems Inspired by Anne of Green Gables
By Julie A. Sellers
With Illunstrations by Jay E. Wallace
Blue Cedar Press, 2021
61 Pages
ISBN-13: 9781734227246
Review by Jacqueline Stearns
Kindred Verse tells a pictorial and literary tale. Each poem is accompanied by a stunning illustration. For example, the poem "Imperfect Girls" is accompanied by the image of a lovely green and white house surrounded by trees and grass while "On Cavendish Beach" is paired with a breathtaking image of sand and sea.
Kindred Verse is my first experience in reading with a book of poetry based upon a beloved fictional heroine. Reading Sellers' poems rekindled my own identification with Jo March of Little Women and Ariel of The Little Mermaid. It is clear that the character Anne Shirley is real to Sellers. She has a close relationship with all of the characters in L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, especially Anne. Anne and Sellers are friends.
Sellers takes her readers on a parallel journey, Anne's and her own. She compares her own life experiences to Anne Shirley's. Kindred Spirits talks about the author's search for Anne Shirley's essence: "You are there although I have never met you. Heart breaking in time with mine." The poem discusses Lovers Lane and Violet Vale, two popular locations in Anne's world.
The theme of kindred spirits is explored further in "Looking For Anne Postcard From Prince Edward Island." While visiting the Nova Scotia home of L.M Monthomery author of Anne of Green Gables, Sellers avidly searches for Anne's spirit.
Marilla's brooch, Anne's much coveted puffed sleeve dress,
none of it none of it looked quite as I had imagined it as a girl.
Unable to find Anne in the house, Sellers seeks out her literary soulmate in a nearby forest, reminiscent of Lovers Lane.
Sellers finds the spirit of her literary companion while strolling along Cavendish Beach.
Sellers recalls different eras of her own personal growth in terms of successive re-readings of Anne of Green Gables. In the poem, "The Enchanted Bookcase": "I find the faces of all the girls, looking for Maude, looking for Anne, looking for Katie Maurice. Their dreams are reflected in my own."
Poems such as "Matthew Cuthbert," "Marilla Cuthbert," "Dianna Barry," and "Gilbert Blythe," Sellers pays homage to the characters who populate Anne Shirley's world.
This is a world I long to revisit, thanks to Julie A. Sellers and Kindred Verse.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Jacqueline Stearns holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Media Communications from William Paterson College now University. She is honored to have been published in Highland Park Poetry and several Montclair Write Group Anthologies.
Posted February 1, 2021
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Poetry & Science: Writing Our Way to Discovery
Anthology Edited by Lucille Lang Day
Scarlet Tanager Books, 2021
65 Pages - Five Essays with Poetry
ISBN-13: 9781734531336
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is re-published with kind permission from Quill & Parchment
Poetry and Science is a collaboration of essays and poems by Lucille Lang Day, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Elizabeth Bradfield, and Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, which illustrate the scientific principles elucidated by each writer.
“Poetry and Science: The Big Story,” by Alison Deming, opens the collection. In a delightful essay, Deming writes about a childhood full of wonderment visited upon her through books.
Deming’s poem, “Letter to 2050,” synthesizes concern for the planet and its inhabitants with the pathos inherent in poetry. Here’s an excerpt:
The Squamscott River
grew lazy in early summer—
muskrat rose and dove
heron swept and landed
and hemlocks that had survived
another century’s practice
of harvesting bark
were thriving. Some suffered
beaver girdles and the predation
by wooly adelgids but still
the pileated woodpeckers
found what they required
in the snags.
Ann Fisher-Wirth has lived in Mississippi for the last 32 years. The poet within her sees that the environmental issues of her beloved state share common ground with its history of poverty and racial injustice.
Channeling poet-obstetrician, William Carlos Williams’ ability to wed science and poetry, she notes that for Williams, “the study of medicine is an inverted sort of horticulture.” Enjoy this excerpt:
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
Purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches—
They enter the new world naked,
Cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold familiar wind—
Elizabeth Bradfield refers to herself as a semi-scientist and a poet. In her essay, “Grappling with the Ineffable; Sciencing the Science: Blurring the Lines,” Bradfield asks the tough questions. Questions for which she candidly answers with Honestly, I don’t know.
As poet, Bradfield skillfully demonstrates in “Misapprehensions of Nature,” how both science and enlightened “thinking souls” might also get things wrong:
That bees are improper
because they have a queen
no king. That crows plant
acorns, twist them into soil,
properly spaced, to serve
as future roosts and manta rays
wrap divers in the dark
blankets (mantilla)
of their wings.
That dolphins
love us, that deer love us,
and the kit brought in and given milk
is just as happy. That we can know
what is for a fox
to be happy.
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke writes: “Poets and scientists share a main line—curiosity.” This pregnant thought is from her essay “Poetry/Science: Lab Coats for House Coats.” Raised in a family where science permeated the very air they breathed, Coke was exposed not only to a steady diet of science and art which piqued her sense of curiosity and mystery.
Such curiosity is expressed in a poem by Arthur Sze, a wonderful synthesis of poetry and science occurs in Sze’s “Net Light”:
Poised on a bridge, streetlights
on either shore, a man puts
a saxophone to his lips, coins
in an upturned cap, and a carousel
in a piazza begins to turn:
where are the gates to paradise?
A woman leans over an outstretched
Paper cup—leather workers sew
under lamps: a belt, wallet, purse—
leather dyed maroon, beige, black—
workers from Seoul, Laos, Singapore—
a fresco on a church wall depicts
the death of a saint: a friar raises
both hands in the air—on an airplane,
a clot forms in a woman’s leg
and starts to travel toward her heart—
a string of notes riffles the water;
and, as the clot lodges, at a market
near lapping waves, men unload
sardines in a burst of Argentine light.
“Poetry and the Language of Science,” by Lucille Lang Day, rounds out the anthology. In an incredibly wise essay, Day argues that poetry and science share the beauty of language. They also share “logic, reasoning, observation, and knowledge.
This basic truth, too long hidden from view, is highlighted in Day’s poem, “Biologist in the Kitchen”:
When the tea kettle whistles
I hear a hundred bushtits
emit tandem calls.
Two gallinaceous birds painted on my cup
must be pheasants,but the coloring is wrong—
too bright for females,too dull for males.
Sunlight slips easily
under the eaves. Mycelia
bloom by the sink
and when the crickets start to sing
I think of the click and shimmer
of polished bone
in the Vertebrae Museum, intricate
skeletons poised on racks.
I sip my cut black tea,
Longing for wind in the forested skull,
where roots embrace whole cities
and fattened ants hang
upside-down, under the grass.
Reviewing Poetry & Science has been more than just another poetry book review for me, I shall never think the same about the relationship between science and poetry again, now I know that “Sunlight slips easily under the eaves.”
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted February 1, 2022
Behind the Mask in 2020...2021...
By Marilyn Peretti
Splendid Press (printed by Blurb.com), 2021
51 Pages
Review by Wilda Morris
Marilyn Peretti found material for poetry as she dealt with the lockdown caused by the arrival of Covid 19 in 2020 and the ongoing pandemic. Twenty-one of her poems have been gathered together in her book, Behind the Mask in 2020 . . 2021 . ., published shortly after the arrival of the Delta variant.
Peretti pens the “floating fog” (p. 6) created by the lockdown, when one day seemed just like the next, creating the feel of “a hamster wheel/ of continuous days” (p. 7). Many readers will identify with her rendering of sleep disturbances; people dying alone, “no bedside visits/ no funerals, no touching” (p. 17); and the disturbance of family routines due to virtual learning and parents working from home. She also reminds us of some of the ways people tried to deal with the stress and dislocation by taking up new hobbies, such as knitting, or doing more reading than they had been doing.
One of the most poignant themes of the book is the anonymity of the masked face, how the mask hides facial expressions, and thus thoughts and feelings. The first poem, “The Rule of Masking Up,” expresses the reasons for masking, but ends with “Be anonymous / behind your masks” (p. 5). This theme is given an ironic twist near the end of the book, in “The Lost Face,” the only humor in the collection. It is a story about a woman who found a new hair stylist early in the pandemic and didn’t see her unmasked until July 2021, during the period in which it seemed that the pandemic might be coming to a close. I won’t give away the surprise ending.
Peretti reminds us of the unfulfilled prediction of the president who said in 2020 that “we are rounding / the corner” (pp. 16-17) on the virus, which would be gone by summer and of the relief many felt when vaccinations were approved.
You may or may not be tired of reading pandemic poems, but you might want a copy of this book to hand to your grandchildren or great-grandchildren some day to give them a sense of what things were like during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
=== ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Wilda Morris, Workshop Chair, Poets and Patrons of Chicago, has published numerous poems in anthologies, webzines, and print publications and led poetry workshops in several states. Her most recent collection is PEQUOD POEMS: GAMMING WITH MOBY-DICK. Her poetry blog at wildamorris.blogspot.com features a monthly poetry contest.
Posted February 1, 2022
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Come Walk with Me: Poems reflecting walks around Devon
By Annie Jenkin
Cyberwit.net, 2021
25 Poems ~ 50 Pages
ISBN-13: 9788182538160
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with kind permission from Quill & Parchment
History records that many accomplished people have been inveterate walkers. Such notables include: Aristotle, Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, and naturalist John Muir, among others too numerous to list. All were more-or-less addicted to striding their environs with alacrity. About this obsession, Muir is recorded as saying, “Walking was often the only way to access the subject of my writing and passion.”
Add Annie Jenkin to the list. In a recent conversation with the poet, she said to me, “Standing (or sitting), watching and listening restores my equilibrium. Many people walk but don't stop. I need to stop to access nature’s energy. To do this I need to be mindfully aware of what I see, observe and feel inside of me.”
This disarmingly simple statement is something of a credo for Annie Jenkin. Her debut collection Come Walk with Me bears witness to ways the natural world has energized her life. Jenkin, believes that half the fun of walking is pausing to allow nature to take up residence, thus restoring her spirit.
Style
Jenkin crafts her poems in clear, precise lines, something like walking. She favors verse libre, for its freedom and flexibility. It has been said that free verse isn’t free! Jenkin pays close attention to lineage, cadence, internal rhyme, and other poetic devices. The resulting product is engaging without getting too “chummy.” Her poems are designed to draw attention to the beauty around her. To this end there is a certain self-effacement about her work. As if to say, Don’t look at me, look at everything else!
Aesthetics
The volume is attractively produced by Thompson Press India Limited. Printed on high quality glossy stock, seven full color photographs enhance (but do not overwhelm) the poems. Pictures include: a cherry blossom bush, a field of bluebells, a butterfly perched on a pale green leaf, wildflowers native to Devon, and streams coursing through sun-shadowed woodlands.
Walking with Annie Jenkin through the Seasons
We learn much about the poet and her philosophy of poetry from “Pleasurable Pastime,” the lead poem. As a life-long resident of Plymouth (in the province of Devon) she wears the sea like a comfortable garment. It speaks to her as a companion who understands her needs. One gets the feeling that to be absent from the sea and its environs would be the cruelest of punishments:
When my anchor drifts
aimlessly along,
I slip on my boots
and take a long-awaited walk
tramping through narrow lanes.
Like sensitive spirits before her, the details of nature give rise to the restorative power of spring:
Passing bottle-green ivy
and pale shoots of nettle
below budding blackthorn.
Admiring how purple periwinkle
and vivid wild violet colours
clash with golden gorse
telling us spring is finally here!
In the following stanza, note the density of language, and the poet’s use of tools such as sibilance and alliteration, as well as the long “a” sounds resembling the actions of the sea:
My heart soars
as I taste the tangy sea air
blowing towards me.
It’s exhilarating to see
sprawling rocks stitched
to the sea by a stream
of endless white surf,
row upon row trying
to take hold of the shore
fray and slip away.
Read superficially, these poems may resonate as “just another collection of ‘nature’ poems.” However, there is another level to Jenkin’s work. Poems such as “Devon’s Wild Walkway,” show the poet’s powers of observation and hearing. These offer an important truth: collectively people need fellowship. A bevy of feathery friends meets Jenkin, cavorting amid their “swoops” and “squawks.” “Tribute,” an ode to an ancient beech tree, suggests qualities of longevity and resilience.
“July in Devon,” moves the reader into summer, where:
Like chorus girls
pale green frills of fir trees
wave gaily in morning breezes,
skirts lifting to reveal hundreds
of spindly legs, stretching
back in the deep darkness.
In other summer poems, “Seagulls benignly perch on high rocks / like spectators at the ringside / poised and ready to take action.” // “A kestrel glides on the wind / feathers of bright russet and black / outstretched, streamlined sweeping / over September’s yellow gorse.”
“Autumn’s Arrival,” ushers in the season with a flourish:
Beyond a faded five-bar gate
honey-coloured grasses shimmer
and rattle in the warm wind.
This poem is replete with the aroma of buzzards, (Peee-u), a “rickety bridge” and “sunlight splinters on river ripples.”
Even winter takes its share of glory, “Hidden gems reveal themselves / among naked branches.” // You won’t want to miss Jenkin’s depiction of “nut hatches nestling in holes,” and the plethora of other aviary life, who “walk wrapped in nature’s shawl / awed by her wondrous display.”
Do yourself a favor, accept Annie Jenkin’s invitation to “Come Walk with Me,” around Devon. Enjoy the colorful canvas of flowers, hedgerows, insects, birds, and animals painted by her poems and offered as a loving gift to her fortunate readers.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted February 1, 2022
Personal Myths: Numbers 2, 3, and 4
By Thomas H. Chockley
Independently Published, 2021
96 Pages
ISBN-13: 9781716321993
Review by Ignatius
If your haiku palate yearns for poems of a somewhat different flavor, this collection might be to your taste. The poems in Personal Myths Numbers 2, 3, and 4 relate, for the most part, events and observations not commonly found as the inspiration for haiku. And those that do deal with more common themes usually give them novel perspectives. The difference in approach is immediately evident in the title and structure of the book itself. The present volume, a follow-up or continuation to Personal Myths 1: Born in Mystery (2018, Red Moon Press), is divided into three sections: Personal Myths 2, Transcending Sunshine; Personal Myths 3, Urban Myths; and Personal Myths 4, River Twists.
The four-part structure of the two books has its origins in myth-scholar Joseph Campbell’s four functions of myths. He proposed that myths have a mystical function (presented in volume one), a cosmological function to demonstrate the shape and substance of the universe, a sociological function that supports and validates the social order from which the myth arose, and a pedagogical function that addresses the vagaries of human existence. The three parts of this book deal with these last three functions in interesting ways.
Let me begin by pointing out that, although the poems in this book are labeled haiku, a goodly proportion are not. Several are senryu. These poems usually lack a seasonal reference. Some attribute attitude or functionality to inanimate objects. Some blatantly display emotions. All of these are anathema to haiku.
That being said, some of the loveliest poems fit into this category. An example: mercurochrome leaves / autumn stanches / the loss of green (p15). The imagery of leaves close to blood-red in color is breathtaking. Autumn consciously trying to stem the deterioration and loss of green adds another dimension, perhaps hearkening to our own wish to slow the fade of summer.
The poems in Myths 2 all concern themselves with the cosmological function, the larger frame of reference, how the details pf our everyday environment relate to the universe as a whole. A theory in physics suggests all possibilities exist as probability waves and only when a decision is made choosing one over the others do the waves collapse giving concrete existence to the chosen. This theory forms the basis of the exquisite a taste for grape jelly this morning / …collapsing probability wave (p17). Other themes visited through the poet’s poetic eye: the brevity of human life in the context of that of the earth, before during and after me / Niagara Falls (p29); the futility of our efforts in the grand scheme, just shoveled / the walk fills in / behind me (p21).
In Myths 3, the poet focuses on the sociological function of myths. As he writes, “They are the personal or cultural stories people use for coping with life experiences.” Of particular interest are after the eye exams not seeing eye to eye (p37), in which he explores the idea that 20/20 vision may not mean you see all there is to see; lunch with an old love / talk of aching friends / and grandchildren (p41) that touches on the bittersweet sore spots experienced through years after love is lost; and first day of school / the new faces / of old friends, underlining the inexorable passage of time and how even people and things we know well will change, sometimes becoming unrecognizable or, at least, unfamiliar. The poet also uses the opportunity to lament the disappearance of politicians who actually strove to improve the lot of the common man: politicians speaking in bumper stickers (p53) and windshield / wearing ear plugs / during the debates (p53).
In Myths 4 we read poems illustrating the pedagogical function of myths through poems about how to live as a human being. And the pains and irritations we tolerate to maintain a certain lifestyle. For instance, the garbled music while on hold: call waiting / Miles Davis plays / under water (p63); freeze frame – / the hammer hitting the nail / of one’s thumb (p66); snow drifts / the sound of a spoon in her soup / the sound of mine (p75).
All in all, the premise of this collection works. Organized in a different sequence, these poems might paint a significantly different picture. This collection is well worth reading, especially if you want to read poetry that will give you something to think about long after you’ve put the book down.
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Ignatius is a poet and member of the California Haiku Society.
Posted January 1, 2022
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View From the Back Window
By Dan Boyd
North Orchard Press, LLC 2021
110 341
ISBN-13: 978-1-7363148-3-38
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with the kind permission of Quill & Parchment
In this illuminating new work Dan Boyd explores five critical areas of life. These areas include: Relationships, Mental Health, Religion, Looking Back and The COVID Crisis. Written in clear, accessible free verse, Boyd offers an arm-around-the-shoulder to his reading audience. I felt in the presence of a life-long friend, even though Dan and I have yet to meet. Indeed, his thematic foci are universal, always relevant, always meeting us where we live.
A Word About Style
Boyd’s writing style is disarmingly simple. He writes in free verse. His poems appear without punctuation. I like their uninhibited presence on the page. Line breaks are well-chosen for a comfortable read. Many poems feature both end- rhyme and interlinear rhyme worked into the poems like a baker’s hands, gently kneading dough. My wife, who enjoyed the book immensely said, “I like these poems because I understand them!”
Relationships
“Friends” opens the collection with ruminations about people close to us that we have lost. The poet explores the impact of loss on our lives and writes encouragingly about a subject we often take for granted. We live in a moment in history, perhaps unprecedented, where people have fewer friends than ever before. Someone has used the term, the cocooning of American life, by which is meant the universal tendency toward living lives of relative isolation. Dan writes:
Hold on to your friends as we take reality in stride
It’s always easier with a partner
And friend
To the end
Boyd has an uncanny ability to “get at” things. His poems sometimes ring an uncomfortable bell about relationships that might have been different; indeed, should have been different. In “The Words Don’t Come,” the poet identifies with countless numbers of readers. As his beloved lies on the threshold of death, he realizes that “My fears and anxiety over you leaving me / Have paralyzed me and my thoughts.”
Mental Health
This section opens with a poem close to my heart. Having retired in 2013, I relate profoundly to the poet’s observations in “Retirement”:
It’s for those that can take it
I have had enough
Retirement is rough
Changing my schedules
Changing my habits
Drinking coffee at 5:00 and taking my tablets
Boyd continues his ironic treatment of a stage of life anxiously anticipated but found, in reality, mildly disappointing:
Work was always my bucket list
I gained confidence and strength
In doing something right
Hard to turn it off
Still thinking at night
About tomorrow
There should be an easy feeling
Instead of sorrow
This poet is not predictable and that is what I like about his work. Many retirees will get an Ah! Ha! moment as “Retirement” ends.
Continuing within the same section, titles such as, “Laughter,” “Can You Remember,” “To Those of Us That Dream,” “Stranger in the Mirror,” “Living in the Past,” and many more, assemble the bricks and mortar of retirement life. I was particularly moved by “Let It Slide”:
Be forgiving as you go down the road
You never know how heavy the load
Might be for your fellow man
Be gentle as you listen to others complain
You might be waiting on the rain
To stop
Then drop to your knees in utter pain
Never assume everything and everyone is good
Be sensitive to your surroundings and the air your breathe
Be cautious to just assume
And then consume
The latest fad
In the “Religion” section, Boyd does not talk down to people, overstate his piety or lecture. He is aware of the wide diversity of thought and belief in this area. Yet he does not shy away the salient truth that as we age, we come to realize that we are in our “last chapters.” Faith, for Boyd, begins to saturate life as never before. In this light the poet offers “Set My Soul Free”:
Set my soul free
To drift upon the wind
Never to hear the sounds of pain
Ever again
Let my spirit rise
In the morning air
The poem continues as something of a petition realized only as this mortal life genuflects to a new and different kind of life:
Might I grab the tail of the closest kite
And breathe
Set my soul free
May I be free to stop the hurt
Amen
Some aspects of life present challenges. I almost skipped over “Looking Back,” because the poet got too close to the real me. After questioning the truth that “hindsight is 20/20,” he asks, “Would you have honestly changed anything? Were you really fair, respectful, honest, and caring in how you treated people?” I got upset with these questions because the plain truth is that I have lived an incredibly self-serving life. There are 51 poems in this section, all soul-nourishing, all designed to wrap the reader in a shawl of compassion.
11 poems about Covid-19 bring the volume to a gentle close. Dan Boyd’s “view from the back window” offers a perspective on life that is not limited those who identify themselves as “blue collar.” Indeed, Dan waxes universal through these lines from the collection’s last poem, “In the Land of Milk and Honey”:
We need the personal connections for all of us are brothers
We bear the burden as we share in the grace
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted January 1, 2022
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The Trip
By Sharmagne Leland-St. John
Illustrations by Melissa Bergemeir
Cyberwit Press, 2021
20 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-93-90202-97-3
Review by Michael Escoubas
This review is reprinted with the kind permission of Quill & Parchment
Possibly the most popular and effective story-telling technique is the “journey.” Poet Sharmagne Leland-St. John in collaboration with artist Melissa Berge-meier, exploit the journey motif in a delightful story about a mouse and a boy.
Since your reviewer’s name is Michael, I fit right in because, to my delight, both protagonists bear the same name!
The mouse’s name was Michael
Just the same as mine
Mike and I became fast friends
We hit it off just fine
The story opens with Mike suddenly appearing (as characters often do in fan-tasies) perched innocently on the Michael’s bedroom window sill. His little tail is curled into a backward letter “C”. Michael, of course, has just become aware of his new friend’s presence.
A little furry mouse
Crept ′cross my window sill
An oil lamp is lit giving the room an eerie glow, the curly-haired boy is smiling, neither startled nor afraid.
I sat up in my tiny bed
And bid the mouse “Hello”
He said, “I’m off to see the world
Would you care to go?
And with that, the boy and mouse are on their way. Since the trip takes place at night, Bergemeier’s pictures create an aura of mystery shrouded in lovely colors and shadows that highlight the principle characters but do not intrude on the saga of mouse and boy living out their dream.
What makes the illustrations and story unique is the setting. It all takes place in Victorian England. With location in mind, I enjoyed Bergemeier’s depictions of manicured lawns, landscaping, wrought iron fencing, a graveyard, stately build-ings and iconic Big Ben.
With their journey just picking up a good head of steam:
Mike and I took shelter
Beneath a big oak tree
And built a ship to carry us
across the rainy sea
In one of my favorite scenes, the mouse takes Michael’s handkerchief, makes a “sail of white,” it fills with wind, billows out and sails, “Against the starless night.”
Where the two intrepid explorers go from here is an adventure well worth the time it takes to share the beauty of art and poetry with those you love. By the way, you won’t want to miss the ending of this wonderfully crafted poetic journey . . . it has to do with shinnying up a drainpipe. See you there!!
===ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is editor, contributing poet, and staff book reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 19-year-old literary and cultural arts online poetry journal.This review was originally posted onQuill and Parchment.
Posted January 1, 2022
Archived Book Reviews Posted October 2021 - December 2021
Shoes: Poems About Footwear co-edited by Jennifer Dotson and Mary Beth Bretzlauf (review by Michael Escoubas)
Not As It Seems by Pat St. Pierre (review by Irene Savine)
Dearest Papa: A Memoir in Poems by Thelma T. Reyna (review by Michael Escoubas)
Forged by Tona Cole (review by Lynn White)
Poetry in an Age of Panic: Poems of Strength, Vulnerability, Loss and Triumph by Terry Loncaric (review by Joseph Kuhn Carey)
Poems to Lift You Up and Make You Smile compiled by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer (review by Michael Escoubas)
Orchard Days by Heather Corbally Bryant (review by Jacqueline Stearns)
Big Questions, Little Sleep - Second Edition by Linda Imbler (review by Kate Hutchinson)
Communiqué: Poems from the Headlines by Ed Werstein (review by Michael Escoubas)
to everything there is by Donna Vorreyer (review by Gail Goepfert)
Remember: Poems for the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 by the Southern Chapter of the Illinois State Poetry Society (review by Michael Escoubas)
A Way of Looking by Jiaqing Zheng (review by Lois Baer Barr)
Calendar Girls by Tobi Alfier (review by Michael Escoubas)
Revelations by Ruben Quesada (review by Kathryn Staublin)
As One Day Slips Out of the Shoe of Another by Marcia J. Pradzinski (review by Sue Roupp)
Archived Book Reviews posted January 2021 - March 2021
How Do We Create Love by Michael H. Brownstein (review by Jacqueline Stearns)
Pictures, Postcards, Letters by Lennart Lundh (review by Lynne Viti)
Becoming Vulnerable by Joshua Corwin (review by Mike Freveletti)
Haiku Rose by Colleen McManus Hein (review by Hope Atlas)
Porch Swing Rhyme by Lavern Spencer McCarthy (review by Curt Vevang)
Central Air by Mike Puican (review by Carol L. Gloor)
Dancing at Lake Montebello by Lynne Viti (review by Terry Loncaric)
Decennia by Jan Chronister (review by Carol L. Gloor)
The Samurai by Linda Crate (review by Cynthia T. Hahn)
Beyond the Moon's White Claw by Patty Dickson Piecza (review by Michael Escoubas)
Inside Out: Poems on Writing & Reading Poems with Insider Exercises by Marjorie Maddox (review by Teresa K. Burleson)
Ministry of Flowers by Andrea Witzke Slot (review by Lois Baer Barr)
Dragonflies & Algebra by Dennis Trujillo (review by Ed Werstein)
Apricots to Za'Atar: Across Oceans and Time Memoir Meets Persona in Pantry of My Life's Menu by Emma Alexandra Kowalenko (review by Dr. Jonathan Gourlay)
Time is Not a River by Michael Minassian (review by Lavern Spencer McCarthy)
Other Maidens by Toti O'Brien (review by Linda Imbler)
