Review: The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo

The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Embrace" by Carolyn Kreiter Foronda imagines the voices of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera from the poet's reading of their letters and journals as well as her own imagination. Many of the selections are two poems interlaced so that you may read them separately or together as a third poem. While this device works more often than not, as in the "Two Fridas" poems, there are places with it stumbles such as in "Deer Running."

Overall, this collection is emotionally powerful without slipping too far into the maudlin. The language is generally fresh and eloquent. In a number of cases animals or inanimate objects are personified and given a speaking voice with mixed success. (I find it difficult to suspend disbelief in listening to a crematorium oven speaking.)

"The Embrace" sides with Frida Kahlo in this tortured relationship, a sympathy it is easy to agree with. The collection is powerful and beautiful especially when it gives Kahlo a living voice agin.

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