Customer Reviews

O Body Swayed

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In her second book, Erie's Poet Laureate pays aesthetic homage to Emily Dickinson, mostly in her unflinching, witty contemplations of the body's ills and the ways in which those ills both incarnate and burden the spirit. Moore often employs an unobtrusive iambic pentameter, as in the first, deceptively unassuming line of "Driving to Camp Lend-a-Hand," a poem that dramatizes the tenderness and terror of parental love: "The day we picked our daughter up from camp..." This poet is the real thing.

If you're fortunate, you've heard her read, Berwyn Moore, live on stage, which she does with satisfying regularity. Lucky to live in Erie! Otherwise, try this book. While hip enough to honor the oral tradition, perhaps influenced by her big experience of the wide world, Berwyn Moore is academically grounded more than well enough to grace the page. Text will do.

Sample these word things, these poems. Dreams of a woman poet. One entire series engages a dead Greek male. Sensations, infirmity, humor, relationships, meat here to sink your teeth into. Discover Berwyn Moore. Understand why, when Erie County Pennsylvania recognized the opportunity to choose a Poet Laureate, a single poet to personify the seething municipal culture, Berwyn Moore was chosen. Then share your congratulations.

Berwyn Moore's second collection, O Body Swayed (Cherry Grove 2009) displays vivid and illuminating metaphor as she explores the pleasures and wounds of both the natural world and our human bodies. The poet, herself afflicted with MS, does not spare us the grimness of physical pain, but she balances it by her celebration of the joys we also find in daily life when we are aware. These poems comprise a strong, compelling and overwhelmingly lovely volume. For more reviews by Jennifer MacPherson, visit the Comstock Review web site at (...).