Teaser Tuesday: Extra Care by Alina Cosma (Poetry)

Screams

He wants to hold my hand in this race
Where everyone tries to keep the pace
Where every smile has a shadow of disgrace
He wants to be mine

He wants to be the reason to rise when I slide
The colours of day during night
And the knife that doesn't cut my life and
He wants to stay by my side

He wants to breath for me when I can't
And substitute carelessness with concern
And chase away the demons that haunt
Every single corner of my world

And I said to him
I don't know what you mean
I only know how I feel
I don't know what you dream
I only hear those screams

~ Screams, Extra Care by Alina Cosma

It is a collection of fifteen poems. All are reflective of emotions. One can easily relate to the poems as feelings and emotions are universal. The questions we ask ourselves and answers we find within the questions. I could get that and more. Do pick it up. This thin volume is worth it. 

Night Fish by Kristine Ong Muslim

December

This cold has taught me
about the nature of souls.

Although I have known
a long time ago that the body
is meant to be a sieve for
the soul fermenting inside,

I am still surprised by the fog
of breath coming out of my mouth.
So dense. It seems that I am not the only one
who is exhaling in this frozen yard.

Night Fish by Kristine Ong Muslim

Night Fish is a 13-poem chapbook. The poems refer to water, all kinds of water bodies and watery life. Life is compared with the uncertainty of the ocean and how the human mind adapts to it.

A key poem that familiarises the reader to  the whole collection is “Heat Stroke”, a condition where moisture is non-existent and grief has triumphed. Heat Stroke is palpable. We can almost touch it----

We ultimately learn to slice impressions,
separate them according to texture.
Smooth-skinned on top. Rusty underneath.
Grit and cruelty crammed in the middle.
Heat presents itself in the form of waves
melting the world away. Squandering nothing.

In this short collection, each poem captures a universal emotion -- grief, fear of death, loneliness -- and touches us.

The poetic structures is mostly free verse, with the occasional nod to couplets and other nonce forms. There is a strong consistency of voice and hauntingly beautiful repeated imagery. The poems connect to us via doorways, bodies of water, souls, phantoms, fish, hazy dreams. Just reading one of her poems fuels our desire for more. And more!!

Silver Threads by Jade Kennedy

I had a dream last night  
that I stood in a field of pure white wheat 
and it swayed and bowed to the will of the wind. 
The sky grew angry and started to cry. 
The wheat wilted and rotted away. 
Underneath the wheat 
crows had been hiding 
and now hundreds of them 
spread their wings and took to the sky, 
turning day to night. 

~from The Crow, Silver Threads by Jade Kennedy


Title: Silver Threads
Author: Jade Kennedy
Genre: Poetry
ASIN: B0088GV99Y
Publisher: Valley Press/2012
Pages: 34

Poetry emcompasses ideas, feelings and thoughts. It can be concrete or abstract. Poetry says so much in so little. I am a poet so I understand the poetic mind. It can speak of something and then unexpectedly, for the reader, take an about turn. There are no absolutes. 

In this thin book of poetry, Jade Kennedy has made mesmerising use of the English language. She takes us into a higher plane. The poems are a mix of dark, spirituality, dreamy and yet rational. Her words show rich imagination, and a realm beyond the concrete. We can feel the serenity yet also the pensive nature. When poetry makes us contemplate, that means the poet has achieved her/his goal.

Jade Kennedy has made great use of nature and her imagery is wonderful. I recommend it for all poetry lovers. And for those who are scared by poetry, try reading this. A thin volume, worth picking up and cherishing....

Our Held Animal Breath by Kathryn Kirkpatrick

Her lip curled. I could see
that she hated me.
                            It was odd

how the hatred went on
for days and days and years and years.

I began to feel I could 
count on it. It was a steady

reliable hatred. Not like
baled hay
                which can rot.

Our Held Animal Breath, Poems by Kathryn Kirkpatrick

Title: Our Held Animal Breath: Poems
Author: Kathryn Kirkpatrick
ISBN: 9781936370917
Publisher: WordTech Communications/2012)
Pages: 95

All the forty-four poems in the volume are extremely readable. The poems are about everyday stuff like hiking, meditating and gardening. The emotions range from hurt, loss and confusion, understanding and rational optimism. Hope and determination intermingle with loss and fear. 

Her poems reflect politics as well as gives us a glimpse of Blue Ridge Mountains and other such places. Current events are narrated well. With deep understanding and feelings.

I could relate to the way she has portrayed women. I felt as if I know them, which I do...my mother, my neighbours, work colleagues and lot more. It was as if I was reading about the lives of the women I know. 

Let me share another poem. 

Driving Home

The girl in platform pink flip-flops

stumbles in my headlights on the broken
pavement.
Beside her, the boy in the gray
overcoat pulls her from the road
in January rain.
My foot on the brake,
she was never in danger, except perhaps—

her face now contorted by tears—

from the misapprehension
that here in this fractured public space

unmended asphalt
absence of sidewalks
anonymous, glaring cars

she is somehow to blame.

2014 National Poetry Month: Controlled Hallucinations by John Sibley Williams

2014 National Poetry Month: Reach for the Horizon Blog Tour hosted by Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit

I am going to review a poetry book. It is contemporary poetry and I discovered the poet via the net, liked what he had written, requested a copy and he was kind enough to send me one. 


Title: Controlled Hallucinations
Author: John Sibley Williams
ISBN: 978-1938853227
Publisher: FutureCycle Press/2013

Pages: 78

As the title suggests, Williams has been able to control the hallucinations. He has taken the everyday experiences and juxtaposed those with feelings, thoughts and varied images. He has taken note of life from all its aspects by making use of metaphors, some of those are unthinkable for an average reader of poetry. He does it so seamlessly and the reader craves for more. He speaks of ball of yarn, to be in love, about rooftops, mirrors, seeing people in the clouds and the blue sky, fence posts, birds and raw emotions blended with passion. 

Let me take the first poem which sets the tone and that tone is maintained throughout.

I

I see a man on an adjacent building
silhouette cut from the skyline.
So I also cut out the roof
he stands on.
I cut out the tools
and the cascading shingles.
I cut out the hydrangeas
the shingles decapitate
on their way down.
.
I cut out the mountain
in the distance,
still coddling its last snows
replacing it with a silo,
the shingles with paper
snowflakes.
.
I replace the man
with another man
with a woman
with a horse
a piano
with a book
and myself.
.
Nothing quite fits.
.
But the man
no longer fits either
on the roof
on skyline
And I wonder is this
what it means
to touch?
.
The imagery is so good that one wants to keep reading. 

LIX

With an apple in my mouth, yes,
I must be swine.
Because strangers stop momentarily
to capture me in their lenses,
I must be a roadside attraction.
As there is nothing to hold to
in what I say,
        I say it again
        And again--

nonsense being the tenderest 
act of friendship, of identity.

I can be cloudburst, yes,
and I can be my own prey.
I can be you.
         or, if you say it,
         none of these

I especially liked the twists at the end. Because that is what I do. That is what I am. A poet. 

Re-reading his poems gives yet another meaning. The knowing turns to un-knowing. From churches to graveyards, from skylines to bedrooms. From clouds to the grounds. The journey is just an illusion. Or hallucinations. Controlled or not.....open ended or closed. Understand it any way you want. 

Book Beginning/Friday 56: Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.

ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.

~~from Renascence

The Shroud

DEATH, I say, my heart is bowed

Unto thine,—O mother!

This red gown will make a shroud

Good as any other!

(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair
Made my answerings.

I, to-night, that till he came
Could not, could not wait,

In a gown as bright as flame

Held for them the gate.)

~~~Posted for The Friday 56, which is hosted by Freda's Voice

Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917)

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950

In this book of poetry, the descriptions of nature is exquisite and imagery is marvellous. In the title poem "Renascence" Millay is eloquent about the core of the universe consisting of God, death, living, suffering and also the beauties of the world. 

"The heart can push the sea and land

Farther away on either hand

The soul can split the sky in two

And let the face of God shine through..."

Millay explores  the beauty of nature, and speaks of love and loss at the same time. The poems are about a perfect autumn and flowered fields, about starting a tavern for grey-eyed people, witch-wives, broken heart, and short poems like "shattering." "The Suicide", touched me--

"CURSE thee, Life, I will live with thee no more

Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!

And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,

I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly

That I might eat again, and met thy sneers

With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,—

Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,

As if spent passion were a holiday!"

At first glance, her poems may seem very simplistic as her lines are short and themes universal. She does not go for complex rhyming or stream of consciousness. Some of the poems are more like songs. The language is beautiful, metaphors don't hit hard and tends more towards nature even when she is writing about the human emotions and feelings.

"I WILL be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one...."

Renascence and Other Poems is not just about beautiful language but it is about our emotions, feelings, the beauty of nature and the pure enjoyment that comes from reading great poetry.

Hurrah's Nest by Arisa White

We alone together is me, one egg in the pigeon’s nest
between my rusting ten-speed and brick wall.
The wind blocked my body from her.

Night and day we were audience
to feathers tossed and shit about.
It’s hard to listen to courtship.

She tells me, 
With children you will never be lonely.

-from “Disposition for Shininess” from Hurrah's Nest by Arisa White

Hurrah's Nest: poems by Arisa White

This book of poem speaks of a family, their interactions, hardships and everything in between. There is identity crisis, scars of being a family. One might feel that there is no love between them but it is not so. Poems are built from moments, memories and just being there. Each poem is a story in itself yet we don't feel anything is disjointed. 

The family consists of a mother, six brothers and one sister. There is a sense of abandonment by the mother but that too is just a passing feeling. Closeness is the end result, no matter what experiences one might have gone through in ones's family.....

I can go on but poetry has to experienced by the reader, felt in his/her heart....

Clamor by Elyse Fenton

Clamor by Elyse Fenton

Gratitude

Wreckage was still smoldering on the airport road
when they delivered the soldier- beyond recognition,

seeing god's hands in the medevac's spun rotors-
to the station's gravel landing pad. By the time you arrived

there were already hands fluttering white flags of gauze
against the ruptured scaffolding of ribs, the glistening skull, and no skin

left untended, so you were the one to sink the rubber catheter tube.
When you tell me this over the phone hours later I can hear rotors

scalping the tarmac-gray sky, the burdenless lift of your voice.
And I love you more for holding the last good flesh

of that soldier's cock in your hands, for startling his warm blood
back to life. Listen. I know the way the struck chord begins

to shudder, fierce heat rising into the skin of my own
sensate palms. That moment just before we think

the end will never come and then
the moment when it does.

~~~Page 3, Clamor by Elyse Fenton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clamor is a collection of poems. Elyse Fenton's young husband was deployed in Iraq following the 9/11. Here she writes about her experience of living so far away from him. This is a collection of love poems where a young wife is yearning for her husband who is living in a war zone. Her poems have an heightened sense which is rare for an debut poet. 

She might refer the war but her poetry is filled with longing for her husband. As a war widow, she pines for her lover, her husband. None of her poems are mushy. She depicts the war, the separation, her love in such a way that we too can see her raw emotions. 

Her command of the language is so good that one is simply pulled into it. Deep, powerful, hard hitting and yet so beautiful. Excellent imagery used throughout her poetry and metaphors are wonderful. Such a rich collection. I am holding on to this book of poems for as long as I can.  

After The Blast

It happened again just now, one word
snagging like fabric on a barbed fence.

Concertina wire. You said: I didn't see the body
hung on concertina wire. This was after the blast.

After you had stood in the divot, both feet
in the dust's new mouth and found no one alive.

Just out of the shower, I imagine
a flake of soap crusting your dark jaw, the phone

cradled like a hand on your bare cheek.
I should say: love. I should say: go on.

But I'm stuck on concertina—
the accordion's deep inner coils, bellows,

lungful of air contracting like a body caught

in the agony of climax.

Graceless, before the ballooning rush

of air or sound. The battering release.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Poetry book 1 read for the Dive Into Poetry Reading Challenge 2014.