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shiloniz's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
"and all I want to do is drive, the radio a river / of summers, everything I've lost / flashing in its current."
jeffhall's review
4.0
Once again I'm impressed with what's going on in the poetry scene out there in Spokane. Must be something in the water coming over the Spokane Falls...
This slim volume of verse pulses with life, as Laura Read bravely chronicles the high and the low moments of a passionate existence. Poems like "Mary's Waking Dream" (concerning Mary Shelley and the genesis of Frankenstein) reflect on the creative process itself, and the careful examination of this theme is one of the highlights of Dresses from the Old Country.
Perhaps the very best poem in that vein (and in the book as a whole) is the introduction, "In Praise of Shadows", which captures the spirit that animates the rest of Read's excellent volume:
JunichirÅ Tanizaki says the Japanese
love shadows, their lights low
when they eat, their silverware tarnished.
Tanizaki asks, Why so much shine?
He wants to raise the lacquered bowl
to his lips and stare into its darkness,
a lake you can slip inside,
your body glowing like the moon
casting its own shadow on the surface,
larger, smudged, a moon
that's been crying, its face puffy and soft.
This slim volume of verse pulses with life, as Laura Read bravely chronicles the high and the low moments of a passionate existence. Poems like "Mary's Waking Dream" (concerning Mary Shelley and the genesis of Frankenstein) reflect on the creative process itself, and the careful examination of this theme is one of the highlights of Dresses from the Old Country.
Perhaps the very best poem in that vein (and in the book as a whole) is the introduction, "In Praise of Shadows", which captures the spirit that animates the rest of Read's excellent volume:
JunichirÅ Tanizaki says the Japanese
love shadows, their lights low
when they eat, their silverware tarnished.
Tanizaki asks, Why so much shine?
He wants to raise the lacquered bowl
to his lips and stare into its darkness,
a lake you can slip inside,
your body glowing like the moon
casting its own shadow on the surface,
larger, smudged, a moon
that's been crying, its face puffy and soft.
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