Customer Reviews

Burning of the Three Fires (American Poets Continuum)

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First personal test I have when reading a poetry collection: not only do I finish it but look forward to rereading it. This collection of poems manages to do something creatively new and fresh. Beaumont brings together at least three controlling threads: first person poems in a day and time when that can be really tiresome, but here is not; subjects grounded in domestic imagery and activities that do what all good literature does...dig deep into specificity in order to show how general human experiences are found there; uses metaphysical (Donne, Herbert, etc.) approach in a contemporary manner. Her language is elegant, sophisticated, and the poems well constructed.

Have you ever wished for a ritual by which to (1) combat a bad mood, (2) quit the premises, (3) appear as sky and grass, or (4) be removed from this list? If so, read Burning of the Three Fires and discover you are not alone. If not, then let Jeanne Marie Beaumont's inventive and precise "rite" poems persuade you that you've always secretly longed for this kind of magic. Further, let her convince you that you've always wanted to know what the Japanese do on Broken Dolls' Day (June 3), and that you've devoutly wished you could find the "original trinket," which is perhaps "a triad of pink piglets/ a trivet too dinky to be of use/ triplet kittens linked by a minuscule chain." If these examples point to a poet committed to fun, be assured that her fun does not exclude feeling or a sense of beauty. It is hard to imagine a lovelier poem than "Mixed Tulips," or poems more saturated with family affection than "Cocoon" and "When I Am In the Kitchen." In other words, Beaumont, for all her whimsical genius, is a poet of range, power, and seriousness.