Customer Reviews

An Ark of Sorts (Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award Series)

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This small book of touching and accessable poetry is about the death of a daughter and coming to terms with this horrendous loss. Those of us who have suffered that pain may find a certain rare comfort in the lines. Ah yes, I know that feeling. Yes, I felt that way, too. A wonderful closeness toward the author occured. I want to thank her for giving us this gift .

"This is terrible. We mustn't think about it anymore," an anguished boy tells his mother, who is overcome by fresh grief over his beloved young sister's death. With a poet's voice, Celia Gilbert allows the mother to speak, healing permeating her words.

Exiled by grief and temporary removal with her family to Paris, the mother examines and then slowly returns from the brink of loss. She cannot but enter the unmapped journey. Too much remains: two children still to love and nurture, a beloved husband, her own unfolding life.

This chapbook, the winner of the first Jane Kenyon Chapbook Award, recounts Gilbert's movement through the year following the death of her daughter--the children have school and piano lessons, the table must be set. Gradually, gradually, hope and acceptance emerge. The balcony of their temporary dwelling becomes "an ark of sorts" that "bear me between earth and air." The poems carry her between loss and acceptance.

Gilbert's words capture the concreteness of the city and the ongoing routines of daily life as clearly as they translate the aching of her mourning spirit and her refusal to completely relinquish the lost love. Any who have known such loss will find acknowledgement and comfort in her lines. All language lovers will appreciate her artistry. The book is a darkly sparkling gem.

by Patricia Nordyke Pando
for Story Circle Book Reviews
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reviewing books by, for, and about women