Poetry and About Poetry

Here are some Poems of solace during hard times – courtesy of The Atlantic.

Here are some Poems of solace during hard times – courtesy of The Atlantic.

Here are some Poems of solace during hard times - courtesy of The Atlantic.

To Cleave: Poems by Barbara Rockman My rating: 5 of 5 stars Barbara Rockman’s “To Cleave” is an amazingly beautiful, poignant, powerful book. Here we find what we seldom do in a collection-a careful eye that truly sees both the natural world and the very human; a craft that seeks just the right word, not just for sense but for sound and thus a music so often missing in contemporary poetry, rich in assonance, alliteration, quiet and subtle half-rhymes, never overbearing, always true. Sections seem devoted to a backpacking trip, her childhood, raising her daughters, natural disasters like Fukushima, married life, love, loss, and love again. The emotion is not wrought with false notes or strained surrealism. The images are carefully chose, metaphor and symbolic truths living below their quiet surface. The domestic life blends with the natural world. A certain knowledge of geology and biology adds fullness. There are poems where she sews herself into one...

To Cleave: Poems by Barbara Rockman My rating: 5 of 5 stars Barbara Rockman's "To Cleave" is an amazingly beautiful, poignant, powerful book. Here we find what we seldom do in a collection-a careful eye that truly sees both the natural world and the very human; a craft that seeks just the right word, not just for sense but for sound and thus a music so often missing in contemporary poetry, rich in assonance, alliteration, quiet and subtle half-rhymes, never overbearing, always true. Sections seem devoted to a backpacking trip, her childhood, raising her daughters, natural disasters like Fukushima, married life, love, loss, and love again. The emotion is not wrought with false notes or strained surrealism. The images are carefully chose, metaphor and symbolic truths living below their quiet surface. The domestic life blends with the natural world. A certain knowledge of geology and biology adds fullness. There are poems where she ...

Walking the Sunken Boards by Linda Blaskey My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is actually a collection by four women: Linda Blaskey, Gail Braune Comorat, Wendy Elizabeth Ingersoll and Jane C. Miller. Here are poems by four individual women, all with singular voices, but a harmony in beautiful chorus made from the disharmonies of living. Here are poems that are by turns bitter, hopeful, loving, strong–poems that reveal their individual journeys as if true to a larger mythic simplicity. I could not want to nor will not single one of these women out for special praise. The poems are of a consistent high quality. They each make wonderful use of imagery from nature, rural life, family history. Husbands, fathers, children, friendships–that my rend or mend or both. You read and hear their truths. I look forward to rereading the collection and hearing their voices over again. View all my reviews

Walking the Sunken Boards by Linda Blaskey My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is actually a collection by four women: Linda Blaskey, Gail Braune Comorat, Wendy Elizabeth Ingersoll and Jane C. Miller. Here are poems by four individual women, all with singular voices, but a harmony in beautiful chorus made from the disharmonies of living. Here are poems that are by turns bitter, hopeful, loving, strong–poems that reveal their individual journeys as if true to a larger mythic simplicity. I could not want to nor will not single one of these women out for special praise. The poems are of a consistent high quality. They each make wonderful use of imagery from nature, rural life, family history. Husbands, fathers, children, friendships–that may rend or mend or both. You read and hear their truths. I look forward to rereading the collection and hearing their voices over again. View all my reviews