Customer Reviews

A Talent for Sadness

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In reading the poems, the feelings of sadness and loss expressed in the poems came through to me in a very emotional way. I felt the author gave me a glimpse into her life and that glimpse was a very brave statement.Some of the poems I liked best (and there were others) are AT BREAKFAST, NATURAL MISTAKES, HANSEL AND GRETEL: THE MOTHER SPEAKS PASSAGE, I AM MAILING YOU ANOTHER COUNTRY, A TALENT FOR SADNESS and A FEW MOMENTS. Reading the poems was a real emotional adventure. This is an outstanding collection of poems.

How to write about this poet? How to convey the magic of what it is she does with words alone? For truly the poetry of Jendi Reiter is in a special category. It is bright and luminous and funny and heartbreaking. It causes you to think and feel and remember. It gives you pleasure. Read this collection. Over and again. I find something new and wonderful every time.

Jendi Reiter is uncanny in her use of metaphor. She takes symbols, turns them upside down and then stretches them around the corner. The mother in "Hansel and Gretel" turns the sad story of two abandoned children into an incisive piece on poverty and choice. Her use of landscape hems in a controlling lover in "Ivy." "Poisoned Hawks" takes us through farming, the science and ecology of slaughter, to a hawk unexpectedly shrieking through the page over loss. Reiter carries sadness, but her artistry and wry irony takes the reader elsewhere. This is a book worth reading.