Poetry

Dear Almost by Matthew Thorburn is a book-length poem that Matthew wrote that is addressed to his unborn child that was lost in a miscarriage.  The book journeys through the four seasons with Matthew trying to show his unborn daughter what life is like – trying to show her all she has missed because she isn’t there with them.  His words are very emotional and powerful to read and they touched my heart deeply.

He asks many questions but one in particular sticks with me.  How do you love someone you never met?  And how do you grieve or for how long?  Personally I think everyone is different and you should never be ashamed of how you feel.  When the tour for this book came up I wanted to read it because a very close friend of mine experienced a still birth and I was there with her and her husband.  I can understand grieving for someone who never was.  They are always a part of your life even when the memory of them dims with time.

There are many pieces within this book I’d love to share but instead chose a few excerpts…

“Keep growing,” I prayed–those were my words, forgetting how long ago I gave up on prayers, still willing and pleading with whomever might hear me to listen, thinking if we don’t have faith–or if not faith, not even that, then hope, simple hope–then our hands are empty.  We walk in the dark.  Pale shadow on the sonogram, pearl button we’ve fastened our deepest wish to–we are knocking on your wall.  Please, little heart, knock back.

So give me a sign if you’re out there, if you’re the light swaying, swinging between trees, that light growing faint, drifting deeper into the shadowy woods, if you’re that pale glow between the elms and alders.

We’ve had our time together.  I wanted you to see the snow.  I wanted to show you these days, what life is like.  It scares me I can no longer picture your face, which was only ever my memory of my imagining of how your face might look someday–not enough to hold onto.  

This is a beautifully written book full of sadness and grief but I didn’t find it depressing.  I just found it beautiful and well worth reading for poetry lovers. Please join me on the blog tomorrow as Matthew shares a guest post and a giveaway of a copy of his book to a lucky winner!

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Source: Digital review copy provided by the author for an honest review. No compensation was received.

You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White is a fierce collection of poetry that lingers in your thoughts long after you’ve experienced her powerful words.  It is best described by the publisher “Angular, smart, and fearless, Arisa White’s newest collection takes its titles from words used internationally as hate speech against gays and lesbians, reworking, re-envisioning, and re-embodying language as a conduit for art, love, and understanding.”

Arisa White’s poetry is raw and takes on women in love with women, race, and a realistic look at the world and bodies we live in.  Her words are harsh but then evolve into a beauty that is empowering to any woman.  This is a collection that one has to linger on, taking in the words slowly, and then rereading them.  I did that.  Read the poems several times taking in the reality of her words.  Love isn’t always pretty and it matters not who we love but through the struggles we most often find that peace that allows us to believe again in ourselves and those around us.  You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened is a collection I will revisit again.

To end I thought I’d share a piece of Arisa’s poetry with all of you and please be sure to enter the giveaway for a chance to win a copy for yourself.

Torn

Can hold a whole block inside of me—
intersections, streetlights. e Lakeshore
Bar with boomers Chicago stepping. e lake
between, the hill that demands a lion’s share
of breath, and I’m climbing it.

ere is a woman ripping sheets of paper
into small tablets. Holds them until her
hands ll and precipitate. Sections read:
can’t be with— and need to—. She sobs
one paper-cut width at a time.

I hear my letters opening, why this is
not working. Never on the other side
of the envelope, sealed with a kiss she will
tear through. Part sigh and panic, mail is
better at saying these things.

My heart is not brave in confrontation,
it can easily return to a relationship that needs
trees and bushes to keep it from slipping—
I’m not ready to plant. I avoid certain streets
to avoid women who stay with me like sand.

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GIVEAWAY – Open to US & Canadian Residents
1 print copy up for giveaway
*CLICK HERE* and fill out the form to enter
Draw Date November 12/16

Source: Digital copy received from the publisher for an honest review. No compensation was received.

Field Guide to the End of the World by Jeannine Hall Gailey is the winner of 2015 Moon City Poetry Award and is yet another wonderful collection of poems from this poet. I read her last poetry collection, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and just loved it. Because I’m a huge fan of anything apocalyptic or anything with zombies and vampires I find her poetry very intriguing. I sat down with it one afternoon meaning to read just a bit and ended up reading almost all the way through it.

This collection looks at the end of the world on a big and small scale. How will we face the end of the world – bombs, wars, illnesses, and death? More importantly how will handle it? Jeannine Hall Gailey walks us through different scenarios of destruction along with those of survival. Even Ina Garten and Martha Stewart have their own poems of life in a post-apocalyptic world. Zombie strippers and teen vampires are among others making this one of the most unique collections I’ve ever read.

Gailey’s poems are haunting, reminding us that although the world may be ending life is most definitely still worth living. To close I’d like to share one of my favorite pieces…

Grieving

This is how I grieve: I take pictures of trees.
I may be saying good-bye with photographs.
Here, a branch of pink blooms against a blue sky,
and a petal against the lens. There, the whirl
of violent camellia against the dark green leaves.
I want to remember what it is about Earth
that I might miss. You, standing tall underneath
the branches, among the owers, smiling.
I taste each bite of fruit sadly, the bite of sour plum
or the mild sweetness of melon, like I might forget.
I can’t write you a note about this, I won’t say
So long, farewell, like I’m going on a trip.
All I can do is capture these reminders, frame by frame,
these calls to life, to bleeding and feeding and ferociously taking up space and time. Here, these flowers say, here we were.

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Source: Review copy received from the author for an honest review. No compensation was received. 

Ergon by George HS Singer is a poetry collection that really touches on the human experience. His poems are about his life as a monk and then his life when he left to get married and have a family. They are deeply moving and full of a vulnerability that touches the reader as the poet shares his most intimate thoughts through his words.

I’d love to share one particular piece that I felt portrays the deep love that couples share as they age. It’s no longer love like a bright shiny coin but it’s so familiar and caring.

Our Quotidian

I love you differently
now than when you were hot
and I sizzled—

I sweep the floor, scrape away
squashed berries, pry
tops off medicine bottles you no longer can
and you drive

across town to find just the right
apples, open the bills first, brew kimchee,
worry for the both of us.

I listen for your stuttering laugh
downstairs and feel the silence
that concentration makes

when you ply your needlework,
racing to finish the Christmas stockings
as if the cosmos required it.

Children phone with stories about
their children. We need only change
the beds in their old rooms twice a year.

You call 911 and you’re there
with me when the anesthesia
wears off—worry webbing around

your eyes. Too, you call me cheap
and I spit lazy. We walk past each other
in the hallways.

Until we jump back from
the loneliness as, when on a hike,
a diamond back shook its rattle at us.

You vacuum, I mop.
I know your smell and you, my snore.
In line at the market, you lean into me,

Grazing my shoulder with the warm loaf
of your breast, I tap your thigh—still here,
together in the quotidian.

This slim volume of poetry is a must read for poetry lovers.

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Source: Copy received from the author for an honest review. No compensation was received.