Poetry. Moving between poems that reveal the curses of one's life and the blessings that are of equal and mostly of greater value, BLESSINGS AND CURSES does not shy away from either. With language that is studied and fluid Anne Whitehouse clearly knows the craft and what to do to make a poem feel right. This work is satisfying in both content and the poets craft. "BLESSINGS AND CURSES Is a candid and powerful work of beautifully observed moments that shed her visionary light on art, on friendship, on social history, on nature, on Buddhism, on writers and writing, on memory, on the fleeting and the eternal, and on God. This is a deeply satisfying journey through a poet's life and soul, shared with an intimacy that is both simple and profound"--Gina Browning, author of Roses of the Heart.
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About the Author
Anne Whitehouse was born and grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. She graduated from Harvard College and Columbia University. She is the author of The Surveyor's Hand (poems) and Fall Love (novel). Her second novel, Rosalind's Ring, set in Birmingham, is a finalist in the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards. Her poetry chapbook Bear in Mind is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Exploration of the human: mind, body, spirit,
This review is from: Blessings and Curses (Paperback)
Blessings and Curses. Here is a poet - craft-conscious and deliberate in diction, tone, and form - but self-consciously relaxed, sure of herself as a poet. The voice here is freely loose, with natural, colloquial rhythms. Some of the best poetry in the collection is that which one simply enjoys reading - for its beat and timing - and as an added bonus one gets tinges of a great poet such a W.B. Yeats - that's how potent some of Anne Whitehouse's image/ideas are. Here is language that is uncluttered, simple, direct, but highly connotative. The poetic voice has a knack for narrating experience that easily could be our own - watching a spider make its web ("Blessing X"). This is a poet who is humble and self-reflexive ("Curse V") while yet commenting on enormously important human themes, such as aging and death. Perhaps a key to this poetic voice is "Curse IX," where the poet learns to learn from and yet break from the master poet; how the burden of the poetic past is a truth each poet must grapple with. Picking up with a key operative metaphor from her first book (The Surveyor's Hand), and exploding it to archetypal proportions, the poet exhibits the power to enter into other people's lives and share their experiences. As the poet says about the characters in her prose works, she unveils their "ardors and agonies." Just as a few examples, we learn about Eleanor, Leon, Patty, Erika, Abby, and others (not to mention other places, whether Alabama, New York, Poland or Japan, from the past and the present). The book opens boldly with Moses - connoting the deeply spiritual aspects of the poems. But when one reads, the poems are not other-worldly or goofily cosmic but grounded in the world that we all know, our world, enumerating life's anxieties, worries, and joys. There are some beautiful and evocative lyrics in this book ("Blessing III") where the simple act of searching for shells - "searching among the spoils of nature" - becomes ritualistic; the shells, displayed at home, "mysteries without / the animals that made them." As with her first book, here is a poet deeply connected to the natural world, and in nature, through her poetic voice we understand the human (the poet's) predicament and predilection - the act of searching, for something new, to reclaim what has been left behind for us to find. The poet says, in terms of her writing another book, (an applicable metaphor describing this nature-inspired voice), how she was "groping my way a fraction at a time." For this poet, part of the mission itself is the search, no matter how difficult, no matter that nothing immense is found. This poetic voice favors the bounty of nature over material goals and monetary wealth - the joy of chocolate, or corn, beans, and squash ("Blessing V"). Even in a Curse ("IV"), there is the beauty of a pigeon - its worth as a living creature. As with her first collection, there are many family issues covered - troubles - how the past impacts on the present. A standout poem in this collection is "Blessing VII" - about cicadas and the "mystery of creation." Many of the poems beautifully deal with being in the natural world ("Blessing IX"). But the concluding poem in the collection is truly a marvel, a sustained meditation on creation and passing away, the Buddhist "inner equilibrium" - that's the essence of Anne Whitehouse's work: whether mediating the past/present, the here/there, the human/natural, or the I/thou.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprising,
By Jim (California, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blessings and Curses (Paperback)
It's hard to make new poetry. It seems there is an inclination to make it faux arcane and flowery, or "modern" and shocking... or just plain annoying. It is surprising to find something so definitively contemporary that doesn't seem forced or straining to define itself. The visual imagery here is beautiful, and the underlying messages (or questions, as the real meanings in life are usually more question than answer) are touching, sometimes subtle and definitely in the present. I enjoyed reading it slowly, and the passages and images often stayed with me for days.
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