From Library Journal
Chase's first full-length book of poems covers familiar feminist terrain--attempts to redefine love and domesticity, to slough off bodily guilt and sexual shame, to come to terms with age: "I can tell you now, I never expected this--/ to be old and ugly/ to turn away from the beach/ to struggle turning the lid of a jar/ my sex open and shut." From poems about saints and survivors of broken relationships to a dramatic monolog by a brutalized Cambodian, the topic here is pain endured. One good poem, "Charlie Falls Where No One Can Follow," depicts the demise of an ill man from a comic/tragic viewpoint made wise by experience. Unfortunately, the potential force of many of these poems is sapped by a slack narrative line and a first-person staginess ("I see," "I want," "I like," "I love"), and musings like "Should I take a picture,/ make a sketch?/ Should I write a poem?" will only tax the reader. For comprehensive poetry collections.
- Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Ambles
Bear
Charlie Falls Where No One Can Follow
Dissatisfaction
Duomoland, Or History, Again
Four Days Of Hundred Degree Weather
High Tea
I Can Tell You Now
I Learned About Henna From Cleopatra
It's So Bucolic Here
The Killing Fields
The Life Of Desire
Love's Vanishing Point
Magdalene
Marriage
Mother Theresa
Nautilus
Plenty
The Probability Of Life, Or Sex Is A Recent Invention
The Progress
Red July
Rope Trick
Saint Ambrose In The Basilica
Saint Catherine Of Siena
Saint Genet Among The Flowers
Science
The Seduction Of Landscape
Since You Insisted On A Modern Love Poem
That Cattail Red
Threads
Waiting For The Messiah In Somerville, Mass.
Why I Love Saint Francis
Witch's Brew
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
Bear
Charlie Falls Where No One Can Follow
Dissatisfaction
Duomoland, Or History, Again
Four Days Of Hundred Degree Weather
High Tea
I Can Tell You Now
I Learned About Henna From Cleopatra
It's So Bucolic Here
The Killing Fields
The Life Of Desire
Love's Vanishing Point
Magdalene
Marriage
Mother Theresa
Nautilus
Plenty
The Probability Of Life, Or Sex Is A Recent Invention
The Progress
Red July
Rope Trick
Saint Ambrose In The Basilica
Saint Catherine Of Siena
Saint Genet Among The Flowers
Science
The Seduction Of Landscape
Since You Insisted On A Modern Love Poem
That Cattail Red
Threads
Waiting For The Messiah In Somerville, Mass.
Why I Love Saint Francis
Witch's Brew
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®
