Category: Poetry

Seasons of the Heart: Book Review

Yolanda Grace Guerra

cat seasons of the heart.jpg

 

Poetry offers a window into the character of an artist, as few mediums do. In Yolanda Grace Guerra’s “Seasons of the Heart”, readers are acutely aware of this window because the poet writes in a clear, straightforward voice—a voice that is compassionate, perceptive and wise.

Each poem in this collection is accompanied by a date. The poems cover approximately 40 years of effort. Although the compilation offers a thematic arrangement of the work, I tried to read the pieces in chronological order so that I could see how the poet evolved as she matured. Surprisingly, the early poems reflect, to a significant degree, the wisdom and insight of the later work.

For example, “My Father”, written in 1964, describes Ms. Guerra’s father in his declining years. The poem begins: “Each day that comes will bring the face of yesterday”. These words are arresting in their mix of simplicity and understanding. As the poem progresses, Ms. Guerra is unflinching in her observation: “I wake each day to find a gray old man—who now stumbles in the dark as he thinks of yesterday”. And finally, she ends with: “He cared for us, he must have once—he cannot be my father”. Remarkably, Ms. Guerra was only 23 when she wrote these lines.

“Seasons of the Heart” was compiled by Ms. Guerra’s daughter, Sylvia Stankewich, who has left her name out of the book. I credit her here because she has created a fine tribute to her mother and has given the rest of us a gift.

Not all the poetry in “Seasons of the Heart” is weighty and profound. Whimsy steals into the work, as in the fanciful “The Cat Who Wanted Wings”. Here we meet a “foolish” cat who wants to sprout wings. However, we are advised, if this ambition is realized, the rats will grow fat. We are left at the end with the image of a fat cat, sitting on a branch. This misguided animal tries “to tweet, but only a meow would come”.

Readers are fortunate that Yolanda Grace Guerra recorded her life as she lived it. And we are fortunate that her daughter saw the value in her mother’s words and the merit in keeping a promise to publish these poems posthumously.

I highly recommend Yolanda Grace Guerra’s “Seasons of the Heart”.

 

A. G. Moore  July, 2017

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SnowPoems: Book Review

By   Ron Paul Speakes

snow-brockensnowedtrees

Rime ice on trees on the Brocken, in Harz, Germany.  By Andreas Tille.  Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License

 

There is poetry that warms and seduces. That is not the sort of charm you will find in Ron Paul Speakes’ SnowPoems. These poems do not coddle. They cut through consciousness with cool logic. The absence of romanticized embellishment might lead a reader to miss the depth of feeling behind the thought.  Beware.   Feeling will surprise the unsuspecting, with the searing intensity of burning snow, as in

…………………………………..blossom by

Blossom, the alba-like world will flutter

To earth to be gathered in history’s

Urns for the rites that can cut the ties

To Jack’s scattered memory

To Ronnie’s abandoned memory

Speakes explains in his preface that SnowPoems is about the post-WWII era and that the events described are intertwined with snow imagery.  But this poetry is about more than snow, and a specific period in history.  It is about time and human destiny.

The collection is bracketed by a poem at the beginning that references the dawning of the human race, with

Visas to the Levant, to India, China and the

Icy North, to the latent Americas

and another poem at the end that hints of a journey, which continues

…on the slit streets of the Internet…..

Googling, as memory looks at us from the screen

With organs swollen with the longing of antiquity

As they wander through time and space, love and loss, wanderers ponder and ask an oracle

What will become of us? What will become of us?

Snow binds the separate pieces of this collection.   And the pieces are harmonized by another overriding element: sympathy.  It may be a perplexing, even indifferent universe that hosts the human race, but our guide in SnowPoems leads us gently.  His mission is not to describe a destination for our journey.  His goal is to open our eyes and help us see more clearly the path we travel.   In that purpose, Ron Paul Speakes succeeds brilliantly.

I highly recommend Ron Paul Speakes’ SnowPoems.

A. G. Moore     3/5/2017

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Star Strangled Banner: Book Review

ireland-free-countywaterfordcountryside
County Waterford Countryside Near Dungarvan, Ireland: Photo by Jorge 1767

By  Dan O’Donnell

When I respond well to a poet’s work I try to understand why. In Dan O’Donnell’s “Star Strangled Banner”, I don’t have to search long for a reason. His poetry resonates with a yearning that echoes in every heart that ever left home. His yearning is not merely for a home but for a past. And in this, his work is universal.

The Irish flavor of Mr. O’Donnell’s work is inescapable. He is “Paddy”, “born from the sod”, working the sod and, finally, dying and being buried “under the sod”. Mr. O’Donnell’s poetry extends to subjects besides his Irish roots. There’s age, and love, hard labor and the burden of corpulence. But it is his Irish-themed poetry that affects me most. Perhaps that’s because my mother-in-law was from Roscommon and spoke often of the hard early years when she would cut peat to burn in the fire. The grand houses she passed on the way to school were remote from the reality of her life.

Mr. O’Donnell’s last poem, “Ireland”, is my favorite and it is a perfect ending piece. “Although I have nearly always been in exile…my mind is free to send me back,” he begins.” He writes, “Every day is long with the stranger.”  However, he continues, clear memory “of a far-off past eases my yearning and helps me to send in the day.”

Though pleasing and well-crafted, his poetry falls short for me in only one respect. He strains at times to find a rhyme. The rhyme is not essential and gives an occasional poem a forced quality. However, this minor point does not detract from the overall quality of his work.

Take the time to read Dan O’Donnell’s “A Star Strangled Banner”.  It would be a hard heart indeed that could not take pleasure in this poetry.

A. G. Moore  1/8/2017

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