Book Tour: the moon won't be dared by Anne Leigh Parrish

 

About the moon won’t be dared

Author: Anne Leigh Parrish

Publisher: Unsolicited Press (October 14, 2021)

Paperback: 152 pages

the moon won’t be dared is a poetry collection by award-winning author Anne Leigh Parrish that features artwork by Lydia Selk. In this momentous debut collection, the poet harnesses language to give readers a new vision of nature, the impossible plight of womanhood, love, aging, and beauty. Being a woman in a male-dominated society affords Anne Leigh Parrish the space to witness the world on an uneven keel. Parrish pays tribute to beauty, but also weaves the harsh truths of betrayal and brutality into the filaments holding the collection together.

My comments:

Poetry is subjective, so that any reader will get something different from reading a specific poem. These are some of the poems and lines that stood out for me from Anne Leigh Parrish's book of poetry.

I looked for, and found, skillful descriptions and use of imagery to set mood and tone, and to convey meanings. 

obsession:"the meager glow/of a cande/flickers away the hours  in a gentle/play/of shadows"

vacation: "palm trees sway in the breeze/hearts flatten again the gale of deceit/why expect truth?"

don't we always? "look me in the eye and smile/toss me a spark/from your heart's fire/take me home and hold me long enough...."

the river: "ride, then name the river that runs/through your life/carry no grief for the passing years...."

That the poet chose to write only in the lower case, using no capital letters in her titles or poems, signifies to me her wish to have her words flow in a stream, like a river, to captivate your interest and establish her moods. 

I will pick up this book of poems now and again to continue to enjoy the poet's view of life and her entwining of nature and feeling. 

About the author:

Anne Leigh Parrish is the author of nine previously published books: A Winter Night, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2021); What Nell Dreams, a novella & stories (Unsolicited Press, 2020); Maggie’s Ruse, a novel, (Unsolicited Press, 2017); The Amendment, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2017); Women Within, a novel (Black Rose Writing, 2017); By the Wayside, stories (Unsolicited Press, 2017); What Is Found, What Is Lost, a novel (She Writes Press, 2014); Our Love Could Light The World, stories (She Writes Press, 2013); and All The Roads That Lead 

Tour schedule here.  Organized by Lisa Munley  - TLC Book Tours

Linked to The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also, Sunday Salon

Guest Post by Sherry Quan Lee, author of Septuagenarian

 A poetic memoir

Poetic Book Tours presents a guest post on writing, by poet and memoirist, Sherry Quan Lee. 

Septuagenarian: love is what happens when I die is a memoir in poetic form. It is the author’s journey from being a mixed-race girl who passed for white to being a woman in her seventies who understands and accepts her complex intersectional identity; and no longer has to imagine love.

 It is a follow-up to the author’s previous memoir (prose), Love Imagined: a mixed-race memoir, A Minnesota Book Award finalist.

The Writing Process by Sherry Quan Lee, guest post

 A student once said to me that she appreciated me telling the class to keep everything.  Keep each and every draft of your writing, your manuscript.  Did I say that?

 Actually, I save nothing.  Okay, next to nothing.  When did I start letting go? It’s not about keeping what brings me joy.  My writing isn’t joyful.  Although, someone once said it had sass.

 I have always decluttered.  Every two or three months I purge-this includes not only things, but sometimes people (sometimes they purge me).  But since the Pandemic, actually even before, I started a momentous purge—maybe it was when I turned 70 and knew any day now could be my last and why make my children go through my things, things they wouldn’t want. 

 My office files are fairly pristine.  Sorted, labeled, shelved:  insurance, taxes, car, condo, publications—mine and those of my friends.  Yet, as the piles of my essays and poems thin, I am heart struck to notice a journey of words that repeat, that sail forth, that bring me to my writing/life today at the age of 73.

 Septuagenarian: love is what happens when I die was published March 2021. Now that’s a scary title if not understood as a metaphor.  The mock-up of the cover has the sub-title in small font size.  What does that mean?  Are we afraid of death?  Actually, the title came from a poem within the manuscript and it stuck, the line in the title, not the poem.  It’s a metaphor.  Clarissa Pinkola Estés said What must I give more death to today, in order to generate more life? I say, what must I let go of to generate love, be love, give love, get love.

 As I fumble through boxes of what I have not yet been able to discard, I discover a few poems that haven’t yet found their way to the trash.  One poem in particular, but there are others, starts out like this:

 

“I woke up knowing I was dead.  The first thing I’ve been sure of all my life.  The marks stretched, some visible and some invisible.  Stretched past cardboard boxes.  None of them empty,  Each box filled with an arm or a leg.”

 

The two-page poem contain boxes each labeled by a decade. It ends with:  “This was love.  She had finally gotten what she wanted.  But she was no longer who she was. She didn’t recognize herself….”

 The poem was dated October 15, 1999.  Only three years after I earned an MFA. There are hand-written revisions.  There is a short version printed in red.  A note says Vulva Riot.  There is a chorus that reads:  “Stretch marks, mark time, highway marks, passing marks, remarks, earmarks, market, marker, question marks, magic markers, grave markers, stretch marks.”

 Sometimes we don’t know why we say things, do things, save things—write things.  But there is significance to our actions.  I am glad I saved this poem. If I had come across it earlier, it would be in my book.  It would be the Introduction, the Foreword.  I am going to edit the poem.  This poem will not be discarded.  There are no rules I told my students.  Save all your drafts or don’t.  Discard everything so future generations won’t be bothered, or save what has been your life line and hope someone will embrace it.

 WRITING EXERCISE:  choose a word, such as mark and explore it and all related words by sound, by meaning, or both.  Create a chorus/a short verse.  Let it be the pattern that emerges.  How do you fill the empty spaces in-between?  Are they boxes marked by decades such as:

 “One box, marked 1953-1963, contained Hostess Cup Cakes.  Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.  Barbie dolls.  Captain, May I.  Sorry.  Sugar and Spice.  Axel and His Dog. Captain Kangaroo. Nancy Drew. Bobbsey Twins.  The Little Engine That Could.  Pop Beads,  Roller Skates.  Crinolines. Hula Hoops.  Red Rover.  Pony Tails.  Our Redeemer Lutheran Church. Kool Aide. “Go Tell Aunt Rhody the Ol’ Gray Goose Is Dead”. The Salvation Army Book Store on Nicollet Island. Government Surplus.  A metal Grocery Cart.  Trading Cards.  Air Raid Drills.  Standish Elementary School.  Woolworths.  Wonder Bread.” 

I probably did tell the student to save all of her writing.  I probably meant it.  Much of my writing, however, my former life was left behind when I made, yet another relationship move.  This one sudden.  Sometimes things aren’t saved because we can’t take them with us.  But sometimes, a book authored and signed by you to another poet will show up on a Google search and you know not everything is lost, it just might have found a new home. 

Sherry Quan Lee

June 26, 2021

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Why I Never Finished My Dissertation by Laura Foley: Poetry Book Tour

 Laura Foley, author of WHY I NEVER FINISHED MY DISSERTATION, on tour April 2021

 By TLC Booktours 

Why I Never Finished My Dissertation

Publisher : Headmistress Press (August 18, 2019) Paperback : 108 pages

Named one of seven Best Indie Poetry Books of 2019 by Kirkus.

Foley’s writing may appear sparse and reserved but it harbors a subtle power. The poet’s greatest strength is her acute sense of observation. She possesses the ability to thread sensuousness into the fabric of everyday life. . .This is a dazzling volume of poetry that delights in crisp imagery and tender recollections.
—Kirkus Reviews

Comments: 

The poems in this collection covers the story of the poet's life, from her young teens through adulthood, two marriages, and many travels. It also praises nature and its soothing effects. 

One of the themes in the poetry is of the calming stillness of nature versus the foolishness of men. ("What Stillness") Scaling a mountain, she finds Nature brings things together for her, reveals who she is. (Fractalization") The oneness of nature and finding beauty even in harsh death, when all returns to the earth. ("Tulips") The power of nature to reveal the self ("Fork")

"I note the flash 

of a yellow-feathered finch,

the glint of sun,

a dove's underbelly,

soft with reflected light,

as it glides, bending left -

as a chill wind begins, 

stripping me of pretense." (Fork")

Family life is very prominent in the poems, from the conception and birth of her daughter, her daughter growing up and living far away from her, and later missing her presence. 

The poet's husband and her later second marriage to Clara features in the poems prominently. Her first marriage to a professor almost forty years her senior, reveals  "emotional manipulation, power wheel of privilege."  

"I don't wish to accuse him now,

so long gone, but I see anew,

in my move away from him,

the smile I couldn't erase, 

even at his death, 

said everything I'm learning now. ("The Smile")

"Visiting My Sister in the Mental Ward" is revealing. She also meditates on deaths in the family, events that make her ponder about daily life. 

She relates as a Grandmother and a grandmother's presence at the birth of children and their place in the family.

I didn't read the news.

I raked a rainbow

of pungent autumn leaves,

played abroad with happy dogs,

held my granddaughter in my arms,

and sat beneath an amiable maple,

attentive to current events.  ("One Day")   

Vignettes of family life, a new marriage, being a grandmother, all are revealed in the this brief poetic film of the writer's life. 

I enjoyed reading "Why I Never Finished My Dissertation" tremendously, the poet's relation to nature, her reflections on her life and marriages, her parents, her daughter and grandchild. At the end of the book of poems the poet sings the praises of life in "Gratitude List," where daily things are appreciated, like sleeping late, the midnight storm, the morning swim, green tea with honey, her food, the reeds, and "the sand between our toes."                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

About Laura Foley

Laura Foley is the author of six poetry collections, including Joy Street, Syringa and Night Ringing. Her poem “Gratitude List” won the Common Good Books poetry contest and was read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. Her poem “Nine Ways of Looking at Light” won the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, judged by Marge Piercy. For more information on Laura’s work, please visit her website

Laura Foley’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, April 5th: Welcome to Nurse Bookie

Wednesday, April 7th: A Bookish Way of Life

Thursday, April 8th: @megsbookclub

Friday, April 9th: Openly Bookish

Monday, April 12th: Eliot’s Eats

Tuesday, April 13th: Savvy Verse and Wit

Wednesday, April 14th: 5 Minutes for Books

Thursday, April 15th: Kahakai Kitchen

Friday, April 16th: Book Dilettante

Monday, April 19th: Seaside Book Nook – excerpt

Tuesday, April 20th: Lit and Life

Wednesday, April 21st: @babygotbooks4life

Thursday, April 22nd: @emzi.reads

Friday, April 23rd: @pages.for.sanity

Purchase Links

Headmistress Press | Amazon

Book Review and Tour: Phoenix: Transformation Poems by Jessica Goody

Phoenix

Phoenix: Transformation Poems by Jessica Goody
Published March 1, 2019, CW Books
Genre: poetry

Review:

What appealed to me most about these transformation poems was the rich and imaginative language of the poet - the sensory words, metaphors, similes, and other devices used to describe her observations and convey her feelings and her ideas.

In "Bitter Tea," an illicit flirtation between two people reveals their true relationship at the tea table. "The tea was bitter with betrayal" because of their secret. "The spoons rang," "the ice clatters," "Her summer dress like stained glass," "She tickles his ankles with her painted toes." All the senses are at play here, as the reader is caught up in images of taste, sound, sight, and touch that convey the feelings of the two lovers.

In "Blue Rhapsody," a description of a group of musicians at play, "Chords twinkle in the air like stardust." We have a mixture of sensory images that Goody uses in almost all of the poems in her book, to a very effective degree.

The poet is very conscious of each and every word she uses and her images are new, impressive, and extremely effective. In "Along the Amazon," she describes the jungle:  "Dense trees draped with rope-thick vines /winding among green boughs, concealing/the snakes that lie within,...  I was pulled into that jungle, seeing and hearing it vividly.

Jessica Goody excels in description, pulling in readers with her use of words to capture the senses. Her poem "Jazz" is inspired by the works of Henri Matisse, one of my favorite artists because of his use of color, shape and form to pull the viewers in. Goody manages to do the same with her use of language to transform words into feelings and images.

I enjoyed reading her poems very much. This is a collection that I will keep close by on my reading shelf.

About the collection:

The sideways glance, the quick turn of the head, the sudden look up: these provide Jessica Goody's angle of vision into the fleeting experience of the world that is captured and rendered in her lines.Phoenix: Transformation Poems consists of 70 poems, a mixture of free verse, sonnets, and haiku. They cover a wide variety of subject matter, but the main theme is transformation--the triumph over pain and trauma and the resilience of the human spirit.

SAMPLE POEMS HERE.

Early Praise:

“Through language and emotion, Phoenix: Transformation Poems  connects the soul of the poet to the soul of the reader and takes it on a wondrous journey through the rich intricacies of the mind and heart. Jessica Goody paints with a brilliant palette of words that fills the senses and emotions with vibrant images of her special universe of joy, pain, love, mystery, and fulfillment. Phoenix is a rich triumph and marks its author, once again, as an artist whose work should be followed closely by those interested in the forces shaping the future of American poetry.”

-Harvey Trabb, co-author of September 19

About the Poet:

 Jessica Goody is the award-winning author of Defense Mechanisms: Poems on Life, Love, and Loss (Phosphene Publishing, 2016) andPhoenix: Transformation Poems (CW Books, 2019). Goody’s writing has appeared in over three dozen publications, including The Wallace Stevens Journal, Reader’s Digest, Event Horizon, The Seventh Wave,Third Wednesday, The MacGuffin, Harbinger Asylum and The Maine Review. Jessica is a columnist for SunSations Magazine and the winner of the 2016 Magnets and Ladders Poetry Prize.

Thanks to Serena M. Agusto-Cox for a copy of the book for this tour/review

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Devotions by Mary Oliver: The Selected Poems

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, October 10, 2017, Penguin Press
I browsed and looked at this collection of poems by Mary Oliver and then bought it after reading some of he poems! I love her emphasis and appreciation for all of nature, and her simple and meaningful way of expressing her thoughts and observations.

She chose the poems for this edition, so they must have special meaning for her. The collection is called Devotions, but they are not prayers as such. At least, I haven't seen any in the book as yet.

Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date 

It's Monday: What Are You Reading?

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date

I borrowed several books of poetry from the library written by Mary Oliver, including Dog Songs, The Leaf and the Cloud, and Blue Iris. Oliver tends to write a lot about the beauty of nature - flowers, the seasons, dogs - though her poems are not limited to these. Oliver has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

The bluebird

is dropping the pearls of his song

out of the sky.

- from "Rhapsody," The Leaf and the Cloud

Shelter by Jung Yun, March 15, 2016 by Picador.

Why should a man care for his parents when they failed to take care of him as a child? A debut novel that asks what it means to provide for one's family. (publisher)

I have been reading this on and off, not an easy story as there are lots of heartbreak on the part of the parents and a slow realization by their son of his responsibilities.

What are you reading this week?

Sunday Salon: Inside Out and Back Again, a verse novel by Thanhha Lai

A novel in verse, Inside Out and Back Again, a coming-of-age debut work by Thanhha Lai is available as an ebook, paperback, or hardcover, and was published 2011 by HarperCollins. 

Book description: Inside Out and Back Again is a New York Times bestseller, a Newbery Honor Book, and a winner of the National Book Award! Inspired by the author's childhood experience of fleeing Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon and immigrating to Alabama, this coming-of-age debut novel told in verse has been celebrated for its touching child's-eye view of family and immigration.

My comments: I followed this young girl's impressions of her home in Vietnam before having to flee with her family when the North invaded the South at the end of the war. She loved papaya and planted her own tree, watching the formation and growth of the tiny papaya fruits that she eventually had to leave behind. 

We follow her on the boat heading for Thailand, her family's rescue, her relocation to and settlement in Alabama with the help of the local people, and finally her school days enduring bullying and teasing, and her rescue and protection by her older brothers from the mean kids. 

There is humor and pathos in the account, and the voice of a young girl comes through clear and strong in this relatively short and easy to read novel in verse.

I can see why it has won awards. It's for those who read poetry and even for those who do not.  

My rating: 5
Source: ebook bought for my Kindle

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date. 

Poetry Review: The Jane and Bertha in Me by Rita Maria Martinez

Visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

The Jane and Bertha In Me by Rita Maria Martinez, published by Aldrich Press, Kelsay Books, January 12, 2016.

Genre: poetry

This spring marks the bicentennial of Charlotte Brontë’s birth. In her ambitious and timely debut,The Jane and Bertha in Me, Rita Maria Martinez celebrates Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre. Through wildly inventive, beautifully crafted persona poems, Martinez re-imagines Jane Eyre’s cast of characters in contemporary contexts, from Jane as an Avon saleslady to Bertha as a Stepford wife. These lively, fun, poignant poems prove that Jane Eyre’s fictional universe is just as relevant today as it was so many years ago. The Jane and Bertha in Me is a must-read for any lover of Brontë’s work. (publisher)

My comments:

There are approximately 38 poems in The Jane and Bertha in Me, divided into three sections: Femme Couvert, The Gothic Grotesque, and Promiscuous Reading. 

I found her poetry intense, very detailed and descriptive, imaginative beyond the ordinary. The poet has a keen eye for people and things and an original way with words that pulls the reader into her orb and into her experiences. 

From the first poem in the collection, "Reading Jane Eyre": 

I read in bed, on the bamboo love seat, beneath the shade
of my father’s banana trees. I scarfed the pages like pork rinds,
yuca chips, crackers slathered with guava jelly.
I binged constantly, sunk my canines into text ....

Here you get the sense of her profound interest, likening her enjoyment of the book to the pleasure of eating. 

From "Jane Addresses Edward": 

What you don’t know is that I tossedmy wedding veil from the window, witnessed its inevitable descent,speck of tulle splayed against ground like a wounded wren.

Beautiful use of imagery here, that veil floating down - clear and vivid. 

An entire poem that I loved, "Nautica": 

I was walking toward the post

when a guy whizzed by like a messenger. 

I can’t tell you what he looked like

or what he wore, only that the scent 

of his cologne lingered as if saying hello— 

and that he smelled like you, like the blue flask

of Nautica you kept in the glove

compartment, like my purple turtleneck

on nights I sank into bed carrying 

your scent the way little girls

carry dolls to their beds, the way men

carry loose change in their pockets

all day, without realizing.

The poet recaptured a strong feeling through a passing scent of cologne, a memory of someone that she conveys by skillful use of images of a blue flask, a purple turtleneck, and little girls and their cherished dolls. 

I am overwhelmed by the imaginative descriptive detail from lines in "Ode to Bertha Antoinette Mason": 

Your mandarin voice resonates

among the chinoiserie escritoire, 

the spiced meat stew, silver toothpicks,

spikes of spun sugar, bedizened scarecrows

and giggling fountains in shaggy gardens,

and the evocative imagery in "Reading Jane Eyre II":

I opened a can of alphabet soup

and searched for clues in letters,

life preservers in broth

I was very impressed by the power of Martinez's words. This is a collection of poems that I would like to have by my bedside to read slowly and absorb over time the ways in which Martinez interprets the characters in a book she clearly loves, Jane Eyre.

Blurbs:

The Jane and Bertha in Me is a Rubik’s Cube(TM) of Janes. Each poem is a smartly annotated, hauntingly revisionist homage to Jane Eyre. Martinez’s astounding poems are literary, conversational, personal, fun, as she confidently transports her Janes from the Moors to Macy’s, from Thornfield Hall to the world of tattoos.  —Denise Duhamel, author of Blowout

 The Jane and Bertha in Me gives an unusual twist to the well-known characters from Jane Eyre, envisioning Jane at the guidance counselor, Bertha getting a makeover. These persona poems give us greater insight into the minds of madwoman and governess alike and even minor characters like Blanche and Alice, with beautiful, lush language and empathetic vision. Even casual fans of Brontë’s great book will enjoy this lively re-imagining.  —Jeannine Hall Gailey, author of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter

Poet Bio:

Rita Maria Martinez is a Cuban-American poet from Miami, Florida. Her writing has been published in journals including the Notre Dame Review, Ploughshares, MiPOesias, and 2River View. She authored the chapbook Jane-in-the-Box, published by March Street Press in 2008. Her poetry also appears in the textbook Three Genres: The Writing of Fiction/Literary Nonfiction, Poetry and Drama, published by Prentice Hall; and in the anthology Burnt Sugar, Caña Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English and Spanish, published by Simon & Schuster. Martinez has been a featured author at the Miami Book Fair International; at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida; and at the Palabra Pura reading series sponsored by the Guild Literary Complex in Chicago. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Florida International University.

U.S. residents can purchase a signed copy of The Jane and Bertha in Me from the author’s website, http://comeonhome.org/wordpress_development/

Poetic Book Tour Stops:

April 4: Musings of a Bookish Kitty (interview)
April 10: Emma Eden Ramos (review)
April 12: Everything Distils Into Reading (review)
April 15: Book Dilettante (review)
April 16: Suko’s Notebook (review)
April 18: True Book Addict (review)
April 22: Jorie Loves a Story (review)
April 25: Diary of an Eccentric (review)
April 26: Unabridged Chick (review)
April 27: Pretty Purple Polka Dots (review)
April 28: Impressions in Ink (review)
April 30: Create With Joy (review)

Thanks to Serena from Poetic Book Tours for the copy for review.