Bittersweet, poems by Joan Colby, published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2014, 39 pages, $11, ISBN 978-1-59948-489-1.
Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky
"A slate darkness where thought meets/its executioner" is the first line of the first (title) poem in Bittersweet, setting the scene for a journey where "the roads diminish to gravel" and later to red clay. But this is also an emotional journey during which "sadness/Is sweeter than feeling nothing" and "the tongue/senses one thing, then another/And loves them both,/Loves them anyway."
Other poetic journeys include that of the poem Joyrides wherein "A disillusioned/Signpost points to nowhere but/The extinguished stars"; Seeking And Finding, where "A plenitude of banknotes or castanets/Dance to moonsongs of horned owls"; a trip to Uninhabited Towns where "if we walk about/We will leave the only footprints for a century"; or just being On The Road with "the horizon/Never any closer." There are poems of melancholy and discontent and loss, as in In Merida where "a woman weeps at the shrine/Holding a child in her thin arms" and "red flowers mass/Like exploded blisters." In Geese, the birds are "Silhouetted against the robbed clock/of the moon." We are told "You could believe in geese./In the migration of souls", another journey and transubstantiation of the inner self, while "the road to nowhere follows your desire" (from On The Road).
This is not a book for the faint-hearted or those who don't want to look past superficialities. We are shown Bad Signs, as when "A white pigeons nests/upon your chimney" and "A black moth/Flies into your house" and "You wander, you wander/Until you come to a dead body./The worst omen of all." In Point Of Tranquility, we're asked "Where's the dead/Center of silence amid all the waving hands." With Colby we ride on Albino Horses (the poem title) who "drive constellations through your sleep: and have "forelocks that introduce the wind." In Arbitrations we are lucky to hear that "A monk in a gray hood carries our hopes/Gently in his hands."
These are poems of luck and love and admonition, poems that carry the wisdom of caution and the sigh that reminds us we must all settle for the eye within the storm. We hope not to become like the "plump woman" in Cygnus who's pursued by a black swan with "a terrifying ten-foot wingspread". Prayers are inherent in many of these poems, prayers of blossoming and wishes that "We could lift up/Our children into the mercy/Of kindess" (from What We Could Learn). But all of these prayers are formulated on observations during a seemingly endless journey, step-by-step during which it's "Never so easy to link what you know/With what you want to believe" (from And Then You Are Dead And It Doesn't Matter) and everything is, at best, bittersweet.
Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist, critic and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment For The Arts award, two Wisconsin Arts Board awards, a Co-Ordinating Council Of Literary Magazines Award and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards and a Commitment To Community Television Award. She is a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology (and has received one herself), the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association (for her book The Hand On The Head Of Lazarus), has published several books of poetry and has published poetry and fiction in hundreds of literary periodicals. She has reviewed (online) music for Music Room Reviews, films for Movie Room Reviews, Movie Scribes, and FilmSay, books and films for Book Room Reviews, and books for The Small Press Review (print editions), and will now be writing reviews of books of poetry for the FutureCycle website. She also creates and shows collages professionally.
Reviewed by Christina Zawadiwsky
"A slate darkness where thought meets/its executioner" is the first line of the first (title) poem in Bittersweet, setting the scene for a journey where "the roads diminish to gravel" and later to red clay. But this is also an emotional journey during which "sadness/Is sweeter than feeling nothing" and "the tongue/senses one thing, then another/And loves them both,/Loves them anyway."
Other poetic journeys include that of the poem Joyrides wherein "A disillusioned/Signpost points to nowhere but/The extinguished stars"; Seeking And Finding, where "A plenitude of banknotes or castanets/Dance to moonsongs of horned owls"; a trip to Uninhabited Towns where "if we walk about/We will leave the only footprints for a century"; or just being On The Road with "the horizon/Never any closer." There are poems of melancholy and discontent and loss, as in In Merida where "a woman weeps at the shrine/Holding a child in her thin arms" and "red flowers mass/Like exploded blisters." In Geese, the birds are "Silhouetted against the robbed clock/of the moon." We are told "You could believe in geese./In the migration of souls", another journey and transubstantiation of the inner self, while "the road to nowhere follows your desire" (from On The Road).
This is not a book for the faint-hearted or those who don't want to look past superficialities. We are shown Bad Signs, as when "A white pigeons nests/upon your chimney" and "A black moth/Flies into your house" and "You wander, you wander/Until you come to a dead body./The worst omen of all." In Point Of Tranquility, we're asked "Where's the dead/Center of silence amid all the waving hands." With Colby we ride on Albino Horses (the poem title) who "drive constellations through your sleep: and have "forelocks that introduce the wind." In Arbitrations we are lucky to hear that "A monk in a gray hood carries our hopes/Gently in his hands."
These are poems of luck and love and admonition, poems that carry the wisdom of caution and the sigh that reminds us we must all settle for the eye within the storm. We hope not to become like the "plump woman" in Cygnus who's pursued by a black swan with "a terrifying ten-foot wingspread". Prayers are inherent in many of these poems, prayers of blossoming and wishes that "We could lift up/Our children into the mercy/Of kindess" (from What We Could Learn). But all of these prayers are formulated on observations during a seemingly endless journey, step-by-step during which it's "Never so easy to link what you know/With what you want to believe" (from And Then You Are Dead And It Doesn't Matter) and everything is, at best, bittersweet.
Christina Zawadiwsky is Ukrainian-American, born in New York City, has a degree in Fine Arts, and is a poet, artist, journalist, critic and TV producer. She has received a National Endowment For The Arts award, two Wisconsin Arts Board awards, a Co-Ordinating Council Of Literary Magazines Award and an Art Futures Award, among other honors. She was the originator and producer of Where The Waters Meet, a local TV series created to facilitate the voices of artists of all genres in the media, for which she won two national and twenty local awards and a Commitment To Community Television Award. She is a contributing editor to the annual Pushcart Prize Anthology (and has received one herself), the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association (for her book The Hand On The Head Of Lazarus), has published several books of poetry and has published poetry and fiction in hundreds of literary periodicals. She has reviewed (online) music for Music Room Reviews, films for Movie Room Reviews, Movie Scribes, and FilmSay, books and films for Book Room Reviews, and books for The Small Press Review (print editions), and will now be writing reviews of books of poetry for the FutureCycle website. She also creates and shows collages professionally.