March
2002
Book Review: Cool
Women, Volume One
By The Cool Women Press
Published
by the Cool Women Press, Rocky Hill, NJ
$10
Reviewed
by Mark M. Feffer
It
seems to me two kinds of people write about poetry. There are academics,
who explore the technical attributes and historical genre of a piece,
along with its deeper social inferences and implications. Then there
are people like me, who don't know as much as they should about
syntax, but who love a poem's words, rhythms and moods.
I would
argue that a poem truly works if it can move readers who take it
at face value. We are caught up by its emotions or we're not. The
neatness of its composition scores no points with us. On some level
we understand that poetry, as one writer said, is more than a progression
of incomplete sentences down the page. And we know that true poetry
is crafted by artists of great discipline and skill, who confront
the challenge of enthralling readers with spare phrases and images
honed as sharp as a knife.
Cool Women: Volume One is a collection of work by the Central New
Jersey poets Eloise Bruce, Carolyn Edelmann, Lois Harrod, Betty
Lies, Joyce Lott, Judy Michaels and Penelope Schott. Overall, it's
a moving anthology that explores passion, marriage, gratitude, heritage,
family, and women. In a book of this sort, no poet will hit the
mark with every piece, but more often than not the work offered
here is moving and thoughtful.
For example, there is Penelope Schott's Telling My Husband Why I
Do It, a caregiver's observations on her days: She tends the elderly
"for practice," "for pay," in "pure fear,"
and "so someone will love me / when I am old." Interspersed
are observations on the frail form of an elderly widow, and finally
the crescendo:
What
I tell you in bed:
Nothing. Only my legs
talk to yours. They beg.
In
fifteen words over three lines, Schott connects the trials of a
fearful vocation to the needful, intimate communication she longs
for with her husband. In a neat, impressive twist she tells a complete
story of marriage, aging, and love. Similarly, Betty Lies's And
your quaint honour turn to dust traces the sharp turn of a lifetime
relationship from the romantic to the mundane, and the terrifying
speed with which such changes can occur. In Selkie, Eloise Bruce
confronts the aching loss of her mother and the stunning realization
that she, too, is aging toward death. Lois Harrod's Venetian Blinds
paints a portrait of her body and her lover's in nothing but light,
to hauntingly erotic effect.
A poem often relies on interpretation of its words for its impact,
so I freely admit what I drew from these may not be what their authors
intended. But the pieces I found most effective are the ones that
sketch a simple scene and use it to pull the reader into a greater
view of life. One poem that does this with stunning effect is Joyce
Lott's What To Do When You Find Out Your Husband Has Cancer:
Although
you happen to be Jewish,
pray to St. Catherine of Sienna
who looks into your eyes
from the brick wall of the church
you pass everyday.
And even though you don't know
how you feel anymore
because your "you"
is so tied up with his "he,"
when he asks,
tell him you're fine, just fine;
otherwise, he'll worry
and you certainly don't want him to do that.
These
aren't gritty poems of urban life. Rather, they are musings over
a wide range of middle-class suburban issues. That doesn't make
them any less powerful, and in fact many of them touch on emotions
that are universal, even if they're not presented against the context
of a city and its diversity. Cool indeed, the women of this anthology
are using poems to connect with readers. Though intimate, there's
not a self-indulgent item in here. That's particularly refreshing
in a time when so much of the poetry written today seems to be about
axes in need of grinding or slights that should be put to rest.
I'm glad the Cool Women have tagged this book Volume One. I look
forward to Volume Two.
Mark
Feffer is a founding editor of the Trenton Writes Project.
