This book of poetry is part of Wesley’s mission to bear witness to the pain in her homeland. With her family’s good fortune to live in America, she writes of children in the poem, “This Is The Real Leaving,” that “They may never know / why I’m angry that there’s food in my fridge // while others starve.”
Tag: poetry
A review of Flowers, all sorts in blossom, figs, berries, and fruits forgotten by Oisín Breen
The 95 page book contains only three poems, but they are grand, long, and epic, taking up space and working across time. Each of the poems relates to one another and are connected through the act described in the title of the first poem:“Isn’t the act of placing flowers on a tomb a gesture of bringing a little life back to the dead?” Taken collectively, the work is an elegy; a meditation on death and time, inheritance and love.
A review of The House the Spirit Builds by Lorna Crozier, Peter Coffman and Diane Laundy
Crozier sometimes finds nature in surprising things. She says, of “Key I”, “perhaps it is not a key but a long-thoraxed praying mantis about to grow legs and walk away.” Of Key II, she writes: “Is it called skeleton because it unlocks the mystery of bones?” Here “nature” is human nature, the human mind’s ability to free associate and make connections.
A review of Urban Reflections, Photography and Poetry in Dialogue by Willfried Rausert and Ketaki Datta
The photographs presented here also portray the multiple dimensions and complexity of life. Every photo has a unique message to convey which is picked up on by the poet as she explores the sensations, feelings, hopes and struggles reflected in the images. Urban Reflections is a unique collaboration – beautifully presented and deeply meaningful.
A review of That Strapless Bra in Heaven by Sarah Sarai
Many of Sarai’s lines have the declarative emphasis of aphorisms. “Easier to make an enemy than beef Wellington” begins the poem, “Call Me Sheena.” “Tenderness isn’t necessary but there it is / like a chemical we write to Congress about,” she writes in “Not Simple Is Joy nor Cosmology.” “Wedding planners are a food group,” she writes in “A Scarlet Moss,” “So is roast beef.”
A review of The Grace of Distance by Matthew Thorburn
The Grace of Distance has an immediate appeal with a parabola of terse phrases and expressions turning into maxims. The poems of the first section have a wider spectrum of portraying the human emotions, drawing upon the spiritual wanderings through the labyrinths of one’s mind or hint of rebirth or reincarnation of human souls, as propounded by Lord Buddha.
A review of Meowku by Patricia Carragon and Flight by Robert Anthony Gibbons.
Bringing together 2 cultural forms of good luck exemplifies some of the more fun poems in the collection. Various puns and cross-stitchings of image and implication make the collection surprisingly wide-ranging.
A review of Asylum Garden: after Van Gogh by Alan Catlin
As Catlin himself notes, Asylum Garden “is a book about seeing: what we see and how we see it.” Like his previous volumes, Wild Beauty and American Odyssey, Catlin’s poems here are inspired by artists and photographers. Blue Velvet and Hollyweird, two other recent collections, similarly find inspiration in grade B movies.
A review of Dancing in Santa Fe by Beate Sigriddaughter
Richness of character and content run throughout the collection. These represents the author’s wealth of resources and display her thoughtfulness resulting from inward reflection, along with her ability to define external scenes surrounding her.
A review of Recipe for Garum by Robert Letters
The poems in this section express deep feelings for nature as is characteristic of the genre. The sensory details and expressive language in this section are enhanced with striking imagery and in some of them, deep emotions.
Recipe for Garum is an unusual book: very well written and entertaining. Reading it is a quiet pleasure.