Strong, moving poems of reflection in a fine collection.
This poetry collection searchingly considers the ambiguous role of the poet as a mediator between soul and nature.
In the title poem, which also stands as an epigraph, Collins (Psalmandala, 2014, etc.) establishes his stance: because “Soul never presents in its own shape” and “can only stalk sunfaces from their shadows,” the soul’s presence must be discerned from clues, as a hawk’s flight reveals the wind that it rides on. But the observer also creates, so that clouds, for example, make him or her “imagine horses / become horses: horses become gods.” The way that the soul mediates the divine doesn’t, however, get us any closer to the soul, as our “similes bleed out.” And because “entropy claims / every dawn,” we’re left to figure out a way to live, “to imagine / wandering on” in a world of appearances. For the poet, this means long walks around the harbor, which serves as a central image and metaphor throughout the collection. Although the word “harbor” has connotations of haven and safety and is said to be a place that calls out our authentic selves (“We are each ourselves at the harbor: / Runners run, readers read, children play”), it’s also depicted as a constantly changing threshold, a route to the mythic “Underworld.” The speaker’s longing for spiritual connection is constantly tested by the harbor, with its oil spills and stench of death. Collins’ use of language in this collection, and especially of verbs, is fresh, and he employs forms that help to convey the feel of his speakers’ daily walking meditations. In several poems he writes of the impulse to render the world in poetry and the natural world’s resistance to being reduced to metaphor. In “Ars Poetica,” for example, a nest-building bird momentarily “seems my soul,” teaching a poet to move between worlds as fledglings are taught to move between nest and sky. But, looking up after writing his poem, he sees that “She is gone.” Collins also addresses how imagination can interfere with one’s ability to discern realities, such as the cycle of life and death. For example, a speaker remembers how, as a child, he saw a caught fish gasping out its life—now he “hear[s] myself think look, the fish is playing”; on the harbor ice, gulls are shown dropping clams to shatter their shells, “again, again, again, again, forever.” Still, though his poems are often serious, melancholy, or rueful, Collins can also sometimes laugh at himself. One especially strong poem, for instance, is “The Sacrosanct Mallard of Mamaroneck Harbor,” in which the speaker satirizes his own tendency to epiphanize, claiming that it’s not his fault: “Listen, Jesus, it wasn’t my idea / for this mallard to stand on the dock / stretching his wings out all crucifixiony.” In the final section, the speaker becomes willing to live in mystery, guided by the soul’s “impossible eyesight” that discloses other worlds "by what imagines to contain it.”
Strong, moving poems of reflection in a fine collection.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969074-5-3
Page Count: 82
Publisher: Saddle Road Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thrilling in its courageousness, breathtaking in its vividness.
Moving, psychologically nuanced free verse on death, rebirth and the powerfully generative potential of loss.
Billone’s debut poetry collection opens with the distinctly violent thud of metal on flesh: “I was raped by a speeding train. I asked it to. / I threw myself before it….Oh what enormous / metal thighs. Oh what fast thudding hips. Again / again against my blackening eyes, skull, chest, waist.” The rattle of crushing bones reverberates through this volume as Billone revisits again and again this vivid moment of loss, of clarity and of new beginnings. For all the isolation this act of surrender implies, Billone’s narrator seems as concerned about the repercussions for her father as for herself. Recently emerged from a coma, she peers from the buzzing confines of her damaged skull and notices his small discomforts: “Now almost dead I wake to feel him stroke / my hand with his weary feet in buckets / full of ice.” Though headed by epigraphs drawn from Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Barrett Browning—their influences here are undeniable—this volume’s insistent attention to self-violence, suffused with a complex longing for, and yet wariness of, paternal blessing begs for comparison to Sylvia Plath, a comparison in which Billone more than holds her own. Poems such as “Invitation from a Carnival after a Storm,” “Paris to London” and “If Nothing Else” demonstrate her ability to convey a rich, fraught sensuality with sharply lucid verse. Like Plath, she evokes a father both omnipotent—one who can tear down her “tiny words” with “bare / gigantic / father arms / overwhelming”—and omnipresent, a hovering, suffocating presence whose “terrified eyes” and “gasping face” may have been prescient or may have pushed the narrator to attempt suicide. Unlike Plath, however, she learns—from her father’s fears, from that thudding train and from her late mentor, the poet Jack Gilbert—to savor the profound intensity of approaching loss. As her attention moves from her own recovery to the birth of her son, she cherishes each exquisite moment preceding the loss of their shared bodies: “My God, I have never loved / anything as much as these / ripples inside me.” Indeed, in this tightly woven exploration of how to hold onto something important amid constant change and loss, the “gray light changes / will change // is changing now / as it always does.”
Thrilling in its courageousness, breathtaking in its vividness.Pub Date: June 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989074001
Page Count: 78
Publisher: Hope Street Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An undeniably positive collection hampered by overexplanation.
A debut collection of poetry and prose that blends a straightforward memoir with a motivational treatise.
Mathur covers a range of topics, from her views on global politics to her experiences in local restaurants, returning repeatedly to the theme of positive thinking. Through a spiritual, implicitly Hindu lens, the author—a practitioner of reiki and energy healing—asserts her conviction that “you can always survive and come back to life’s central emotion: love.” She explores this notion mostly by recounting episodes from her own life as poems, with short prose explanations accompanying each. Motivational platitudes, such as “Once we are comfortable within ourselves, we can be happy with other people,” appear often throughout the text. Frequently, however, the prose sections hinder the poetry, as the explanations sometimes make the verses seem less original than they might have seemed on their own. The poetry itself tends toward the trite, often prioritizing conventional rhyme schemes over creative expression; for example, one entry commemorating the 2010 World Cup begins: “I am full of happiness; / I am full of cheer. / It makes me very happy / The World Cup is here.” Throughout, there’s an odd tension between the author’s focus on specific people and events in her own life and her stated goal of promoting love and positivity; for example, there may be a connection between the author’s experiences in an exercise class and the overall value of community, but including the names of her classmates probably isn’t necessary. Still, Mathur’s writing is consistently heartfelt and sometimes inspiring, and many poems are likely to resonate with fellow spiritual seekers, as when she writes, “Yes, there is always time. Listen—and stay quiet. / It is the voice of the divine.” Although such ideas may not be particularly original, they may be useful for readers looking to live mindfully.
An undeniably positive collection hampered by overexplanation.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0620563116
Page Count: 142
Publisher: Sarita Mathur
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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