Customer Reviews

Original Love: Poems

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Would it be cliché to say I love this book of poems about love?

This is Ms. Peacock's fourth book of poems, but it is the first of hers that I have read. This was another used book store gem of a find (the other was "Twelve Moons" by Mary Oliver which I have also reviewed). Most of the poems are free verse, but rhyme is often incorporated. Some of the poems are modern takes on formal poetry. All-in-all, it's a nice mix that continually surprises the reader.

The book is broken into three parts: Part 1 - First Love, Part II - Mother Love, and Part III - Another Love. The opening poem, "Why I Am Not a Buddhist", serves an introduction to book. The poem speaks about the author's love of emotion, of want, of desire. It includes the lines, "... I love the things I've sought-- / you in your beltless bathrobe, tongues of cash that loll / from my billfold--and love what I want: clothes, / houses, redemption. ...".

My favorite poem - "Lullaby" - occurs in Part I. The poem starts out, "Big as a down duvet the night / pulls the close Ontario sky / over the naked earth. ...". The other poems in part one explore the love of a boyfriend/spouse/significant other. In this section, I also particularly liked "The Wheel" and "The Purr". Ms. Peacock is does not shy away from explicit language, yet it never feels forced or vulgar.

Part II deals with Ms. Peacock's relationship with her mother. Part III explores religion, faith, and other types of love. A couple of poems that I particularly liked from the latter poritons of the book include:

"The Spider Heart" which begins, "Sleeping with my husband in my mother's bed / the night she died, I expected the tree-- / the one that Emerson said grew tall and wide / after his father died--but woke up instead / with a spider wedged in my rib cage..."

"The Guilt" which begins, "Guilt creeps like sheets of insects that erase / bodies down to their skeletons..."

This is another book I highly recommend. I've read this one so many times I've broken the hardback binding and need to get another copy.

Original Love contains 91 pages of intensely personal and universal poems. The author divides these poems into three sections; First Love, Mother Love and Other Love. In 'So What If I'm In Love', a poem in the first section, I felt as if I were the one who accidently left "... the penguin sweatshirt ... smelled both of him and time ..." on the subway. I felt the pain of loss along with her as the subway doors closed and his scent went with it. Poems dealing with her mother's life and death comrpise the second section. In 'Raptor', Peacock accepts her mother's death on its own terms while imagining how her own death will happen. "Foolishly I'd imagined for you your mother's death, not your own ... who knows what death I'll get exactly, being daughterless, the line begetting neutralized, in hands beyond love". In the final section, poems like 'Simple' address her spiritual side; "When the wafer dissolves on my tongue I wonder what part of the Lord I have eaten," while 'Forgiveness' verbalizes finding peace with her past ..."the felt lightness of existence self-created, forgiveness". Something in each of these poems spoke to me as I were their narrator. I wish I had written them. I recommend this collection to anyone who wishes to dig into the heart and mind of a woman.

Be prepared for a candid but fun reading! Molly is raw in her poems about sex that will make you blush.

It's a lovely and beautiful song. Shall I speak to you? Mind It's a secret! Next time......