Blue Positive [Paperback]

Martha Silano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2006

A collection of intricately-crafted poems that honestly and movingly address pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum depression, and other aspects of family life.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Martha Silano is no June Cleaver. Like that infamous black-and-white sitcom mom, Silano revels in her children's births and babbles in her expertly-crafted poems like "My Son Considers the Mockingbird," "Song for a Newborn," and "Crown of Sonnets for a Son." But unlike Mrs. Cleaver and other sentimentally-drawn fictional mothers, the speaker in Silano's poems writes with authority about "What They Don't Tell You About the Ninth Month" and sagely advises "If You Want a Girl to Grow Up Gentle, Lace Her Tight." In her follow-up to the award-winning What the Truth Tastes Like (Nightshade Press 1999), Silano writes unflinchingly about her bout with postpartum depression and "shows us how a bright and ultimately optimistic sensibility can overcome disaster," in the words of Peter Pereira, author of an award-winning book published by the prestigious Copper Canyon Press.

Silano, who earned her MFA from the University of Washington in 1993, evinces a palpable delight in language in this collection. Poems such as "Picking a Name While Picking Blackberries" and "To Know a Flower" remind us that, to paraphrase and distort Mallarme, we don't make poems out of sentiments, but of words. Here is an excerpt from her poem "My Words":

Ones I never considered memorable or strange -- bubble, banana, anemone -- bloomed when my son began to use them

to describe falling snow, a crescent moon, a cockatiel's plume. Plum is a terrible word for a perfect fruit, . . .

Silano's poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Gargoyle, Poetry Daily, and many other fine journals and anthologies.

About the Author

Martha Silano grew up in New Jersey and was educated at Grinnell College and the University of Washington. Her previous collection, What the Truth Tastes Like, published by Nightshade Press, won the 1998 William and Kingman Page Poetry Book Award. Her poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Green Mountains Review, Fine Madness, and various anthologies and journals. She teaches at Bellevue and Edmonds Community Colleges and lives in Seattle, Washington.

Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: Steel Toe Books (March 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974326429
• ISBN-13: 978-0974326429
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,033,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #86 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Postpartum Depression

More About the Author

Martha Silano is the author of three books of poetry: The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, Blue Positive, and What the Truth Tastes Like. Her poems have appeared in Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, AGNI, and in over a dozen anthologies. She teaches at Bellevue College.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Look at This Book for Yourself, May 2, 2006

By 

Debra Silverelf (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Positive (Paperback)

BLUE POSITIVE by Martha Silano has a bite, a bark, and some poems make me yelp with pain. It hurts to read "Harborview." Others give me balm, like "Song for a Newborn" and "Explaining Current Events to a One Year Old." All of it feels necessary to read, like reading the details of a dear one's day.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible collection of poems you will want to read over and over!, April 23, 2006

By 

Kelli (Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Positive (Paperback)

I have Martha Silano's first book of poems (What The Truth Tastes Like) and have been waiting for her second book, and this book does not disappoint!

These poems focus on pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, postpartum depression and being alive in the world. Silano is a master at language and each poem is a work of art. I have too many favorites to list but I'd have to include "Harborview," "Explaining Current Events to a One-Year Old," "I'll Never Be Dorianne Laux at the Laundromat," and "What They Don't Tell You About the Ninth Month."

Blue Positive is a stunning, rich collection you will not be able to put down and I highly recommend this collection to all. It's a book you can read again and again.

5.0 out of 5 stars A book to savor, April 28, 2006

By 

S. Luftig (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blue Positive (Paperback)

Sensuous and analytical, funny and heartbreaking. Silano shares her experiences of motherhood with this shimmering new collection of poems. What comes through most is the author's sense of joyous reverence, and for everything from African daisies to zygotes. Wonderful.