Customer Reviews

Flesh That Was Chrysalis

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Masterful, hard hitting, insightful, delightful-- Belin does it all! He separates the wheat from the chaff and is on his way to immortality. Personally, I am looking forward to much, much more of Melvin Stuart Belin.

"Mel Belin's poems in Flesh That Was Chrysalis balance the poignancy of change or loss with a spiritual optimism that a relationship or something else of transcendent value has been maintained. The book has four distinct sections held together by their intelligence, spiritual sensitivity and respect for the traditions of culture and of poetry . . . Although I was unfamiliar with Belin's poems before reading this collection, I was excited to discover a writer with his skill, his range of subjects and heart."

-- Marcia L. Hurlow, Small Press Review Nov./Dec. 2000

Mel Belin is an accomplished poet. Flesh That Was Chrysalis is an engaging anthology of his work showcasing the best that he has done to date and documents Belin as worthy of national attention. Pas De Deux: When Marguerite danced around Faust/supple and girlish, a swirl in the white/silk dress, a blush on her cheeks,/caught him in the worm of her smell--/a sachet blend of herbs, flowers---/with the hook. Mephisto, grinning/like a pitchman at some sideshow/rubes. When she flashed eyes shimmering/their moonlit lakes, and in the surrounding/brush, a savant, wrinkled, hungry/for communion,/touched him where God/was not, he signed the contract on the spot.

Some wonderful poems in this collection, particularly "Vision" (an intricate meshing of the mystical and the technical) and "Mephisto Waltz," an ingenious poem which takes a recently deceased character backwards through his life.

Mel Belin's long-awaited, first published collection will doubtless do much to explain and expand his cult following. Possessed of one of America's strongest intellects, Belin has a rare, perhaps unique, gift of expression that leads the reader on elucidating journeys through the cranial crannies and cerebral subcaverns where latent thoughts stir and emotions have no name. Eventually the reader passes through a realm of belletristic (or Belin-tristic) bright light that renders everything clear and the mind refreshed. The journey is neither for the weak-minded nor the faint of heart, but one well worth taking. With exhilarating precision the reader is metaphorically knocked cold and awakened to find himself a better person from the experience. Modern poetry can be daunting to some who find neither rhyme nor reason. Not so the works of Mr. Belin, whose appreciation of natural beauty, both physical and metaphysical, transcends the bounds of rhyme without escaping the gravity of formal sensibility. A better gift for light-hearted deep thinkers could hardly be imagined.

Mr. Belin's works are known through esoteric magazines and live readings in various parts of the country. Let's hope that introducing these works to more mainstream venues will heighten awareness of this major new talent and give people one of the best gifts ever: the opportunity to discover something new and experience something of great beauty and significance for the first time.

"You don't have to be Jewish" to enjoy Mel Belin's poems. But, like a good rich rye bread, if you don't already know what to expect, you'll be surprised to find how sensual and complex the joys of this particualr cultural tradition can be.

The 53 poems in FLESH THAT WAS CHRYSALIS range widely--and wildly--over an astonishing expanse of family, history, ancient legend, philosophical reasoning and honest emotion.

Some individual poems stand out for memorable phrases and inventiveness: "Anniversary" with its arresting evocation of a family tragedy; "Leaf and Tree" that speculates on the moment when dying begins; or "The Mephisto Waltz," where we watch a life passing in reverse.

Poems like these transcend their author's personal history and ethnic background--a challenge that many poets today seem unwilling or unable to attempt. Speaking to strangers, those who don't necessarily share your own priorities and values, calls for a special kind of courage (or bravado) that Belin has. His best poems produce effects that any reader with a heart open to compassion and a mind alert to unconventional possibilities can relish and be glad for.

END

Mel Belin is always eloquent, often moving (great poem at end of the book on the joys of being lost), and, for me, particularly pleasing when he combines his usual eloquence with a sad-eyed, Woody-Allenish humor -- as he often does in these poems.