Customer Reviews

Yellow Doors: Poems

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Ruth Goring's debut collection of poems is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates--as you turn the pages, you never know what you are going to get, such is the variety and scope of the poetry.

Two poems on the same subject serve to illustrate: In "Approach," love is weighty, ponderous, and impressive "like a great ship carrying mountains/ lighted and teeming." In "Not Very Pavlovian," love is a "cool trill" of a whistle that barely pierces the brain of the speaker, who is "sniff[ing] at stumps" like a playful dog. Finally, the speaker recognizes the call and responds: "wagging my silly tail I/ run."

Much of Goring's poetry focuses on her faith. In "Two Fish," Jesus' humanity shines though as he prepares fish and "sets their innards & eyes/ on the sand for the birds." It is the rich detail that helps the reader visualize the Jesus who walked the earth two thousand years ago.

Goring's work also includes poems about language: "Bookwish," "Revision," and "I Hate to Write." Any writer will relate to the latter, a poem about the good writing days and, too often, bad ones, when the writer sits like a fisher, "waiting,/ slapping at mosquitoes,/ reeling in old shoes."

Goring's Yellow Doors is a rich, detailed tapestry of words that will draw you in among the threads and have you touching them in wonder, marveling at their colors.