IMAGES IN THE CLOUDS

In her debut poetry collection, Wells invokes classical mythology and memories of childhood, travel, and personal growth.

The compilation is split into three sections—“Remembrance,” “A Touch of Humor,” and “Fantasia”—and each is peppered with the author’s drawings and photographs of moments and places described in each poem. The works take on themes of memory, aging, and myth as they delve into the minutiae of the speakers’ lives, including childhood and later travels through Italy, Greece, and Peru. In her work, Wells frequently veers toward prose poetry, as in “Memories in Silver,” and all of her poems maintain a distinctly prosaic narrative quality that falters when tackling moments of emotional significance. In “Pergamum,” for instance, an art student in Italy attempts to capture a Corinthian column, striving to “give a correct image to something / so beautiful and elusive.” It reveals a determined but lackluster approach; most of these poems similarly seem to attempt to capture a “correct” image of a memory, a moment, or a feeling, with mixed results. Occasionally, Wells’ poems successfully move beyond the trappings of mimicry to offer a more poetic and sincere image, as in “The Edelweiss”: “In the highest mountain meadows / On sheer rocks above the graceful colors / Of the Rhododrendons and Enzians….” Others feel more contrived, even relying on author’s notes to explain the poem to readers. Even those in which the poet draws upon the inspiration of classical history and mythology fall flat, simply restating, in less emotionally charged terms, stories that have been told and retold for centuries, as in “Theseus, Ariadne, and Dionysus.”

A jubilant celebration of the poetic form but one lacking in inspiration.