The collection gives us a cohesive, quiet voice of a narrator who seems at times to not necessarily want to talk to us. We’re faced with an internal negotiation, and perhaps finally reconciliation, with one’s own version of truth. The loops of memory – there is repetition in many of the poems – tease us with the fact that history is only ever a partial account of events.
Category: Poetry Reviews
Rest, Unrest, and Redefining Humanity: A review of A Northern Spring by Matt Mauch
In braiding his ruminative nonfiction with his soaring lyrical poetry, Mauch paints his 2020 in beautiful lines, hard truths, and the dual mundanity and terror of being stranded internationally as the world shut down. In writing from two Northern settings, Mauch explores what a time of rest and unrest can reveal about the human experience.
A review of The Man, the Boy and the Tamarisk Tree by Tess Driver
The poet observes the world around her, creating poems from ‘moments in time’. She could be in Bali, the Serengeti or Argentina. With vivid descriptions she tells sad stories like the one about a bear in the Albanian border who was abused and starved or the elephants who will die for the ivory in their tasks. Obviously, the poet is an animal lover.
A review of Diving At The Lip of The Water by Karen Poppy
Karen Poppy doesn’t spare the reader of discomfort and grimaces when exploring her identity. She courageously uncovers the secrets of the women in her family, like one who skins the animals in the collection. However, in the last two parts, the poet shows what the healing process looks like and presents us a strong voice protected by the elegance of language, and those extraordinary Voltas at the end of poems.
A review of The Shadow Box by Jean Kent
The poetry is often epigraphed by a snippet from a letter, either from George to Jean or Jean to George, charged by its setting as the characters move from Australia through Gallipoli, Egypt, Paris, and Palestine. The result is a tender ekphrastic that utilises these artefacts: a wedding dress, a hat, diary entries, letters, or a pressed flower to bring the past into the present, connecting the generations.
A review of Called To Coddiwomple by Colleen Moyne
The narrative pieces are well defined and give an insight into human nature, which express an attitude towards life, a way of being in the world. Reading Called to Coddiwomple is an immersive experience which impacts on perception and empathy. The reader feels embraced by the author’s experiences, intimate as well as excited by the new life she embarks on.
A review of Already Long Ago by David Giannini
David Giannini is a wonderful teacher. This is a partial list of the words he taught me: Tardis [sic] (acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space), withes (branches of an osier used for tying), gnomon (part of a sundial that casts a shadow), dittany (a bushy shrub), skift (something that is light), sposhy (slushy, dirty, and wet), rivulose (having irregular lines), garth (small yard or enclosure), tohubohu (a state of chaos; utter confusion), and my favorite, mondegreen (a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.)
A review of Borrowed Words: Cut-up Poems by Peter Wortsman
This poet’s cut-up poems, generated mostly during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, when he felt “cut-off [like a] … modern day monk languishing in the solitude of my cell…” find their roots in Dada poet Tristan Tzara’s méthode découpé, and shares scissors with William S. Burroughs’ cut-up method by which the gunman-junkie-novelist made new poems from old material. Wortsman’s approach differs though from his forbears.
A review of Laughing Matters: Poems with a Wink and a Smile by James A. Tweedie
James Tweedie is not only a first-rate poet, but is also a musician and composer, which is very refreshing to me, as I am also both a poet and a musician. You can hear the musicality exuding from his poetry. The meter is clean and precise, the rhymes are perfect, rarely slanted, so you get the full effect of the satisfactions inherent in perfectly-executed formal poetry. But it never upstages the humor and wit of Tweedie’s funny perspective, and the results are often quite unexpected!
A review of Standing in the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris
Over and over, Farris lightly dances between the doors of this world and beyond, between the possibility of dying, between the possibility of continuing to live, almost daring death, daring the doctor. She continues to give the reader a very candid view of how she copes with cancer, treatment, other people’s views of her, her own sense of loss, America, and her will to live.