Customer Reviews

An Unkindness of Ravens (New Poets of America)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If , in our modern world, we ask whether women are still vulnerable, we need only to turn to Meg Kearney's An Unkindness of Ravens for the answer. In "Swan Song" "She knew his boots were full of mud...She felt him watching through the dark...She could smell him now. Beer and cigarettes...She'd known [what he intended to do] by the way he'd come in the door." He had brought the "rush of rain" from the porch into their bedroom..."Making a mess of everything."
While the effect of a drunken man is strongly demonstrated in one poem, Kearney clearly gives us a more encompassing picture of female loss in "Love is a Form of Recklessness" when she relates that "My mother's love is the strength to walk and keep on walking, drive and keep driving until her daughter has learned to live without her..."
In this volume, Meg Kearney even touches on that famous "La Belle Dame" who gave and gave "until at last she'd given it all away."
This is not to say that Kearney only contemplates the causes of female depression. Many of her poems also reflect fond memories of a father lost and chances for a new love found.