MICHAEL ESCOUBAS REVIEWS SOLILOQUY TO THE NIGHT SKY BY KATHLEEN GREGG
Soliloquy to the Night Sky by Kathleen Gregg. 35 Poems ~ 43 pages. Accents Publishing.
Preparing to write this review has been a challenge. I note this because I witnessed my younger brother’s slow decline from brilliance to the dark night of total loss. My heart is enveloped in Kathleen Gregg’s poetic cocoon of loss and the dilemma it presents for the meaning of life. Soliloquy to the Night Sky will resonate with thousands who have witnessed a loved one’s final monolog with whom they once were and will never be again. “No False Hope,” appears half-way through the collection. Nancy, Kathleen’s older sister, is in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s:
When I visit now, I am faced
with a body emptied of you.
Your heart still beats its rhythm,
lungs push air in and out.
If a nurse lifts a spoon to your lips,
you open, chew and swallow.
Sometimes, the aides park you
in front of the common room TV.
You stare at the screen with eyes
devoid of awareness. This is
how I find you today. I squat
in front of your wheelchair, smile,
say Hi, Nancy, it’s me, your sister,
and you turn those blank eyes on me.
The poem continues describing the poet’s longing that her efforts to love, comfort, and amuse her beloved will somehow reach Nancy’s awareness. Notice how this poem is a series of declarative sentences, stark, rational. Nancy’s life-situation has become exactly that, descriptive rather than engaging. How did we get here? Kathleen opens her collection with “No Off Ramp,” a poem perfectly placed as Nancy is, “sobbing and / sobbing and / begging for her life / to make sense again.” Kathleen is trying to comfort her panicked sister over the speaker phone while driving in traffic. “relentless traffic / is the only thing keeping me grounded / from the jolt / of my sister’s distress.” Indeed, in the moment and in the larger life-setting, Kathleen knows there is no “off ramp” for this. There is “just enough awareness / to split us down the middle.”
“Nancy is Never the Same,” is an early clue of what is ahead:
After her year of breast cancer therapy,
she knows it. Chemo Brain is real.
I’m not as sharp as I used to be. Still,
we believe surely, with time,
her fogginess will clear up. Surely.
Then, for the first time ever, she forgets
my birthday. No card, no phone call.
I let it go.
However, these are just the first fruits of Nancy’s decline; the inability to work through things that in times past were not problematic for her sister’s keen mind. From there telling incidents build one upon the other. The poem “I Ignore the Signs,” portrays my own experience with my brother’s decline. I consistently told myself This isn’t really happening. It was trivial things that Kathleen and I ignored:
my sister needs a dress
for her granddaughter’s wedding
tells me she dreads the search
(my cue to offer help)
I jump at the chance
to do such a girl thing with her
This poignant poem chronicles a series of “little things” that tell a big story in retrospect: Nancy has never heard of Marshalls, where they will shop; inside the store Nancy loses her sense of place, looks “defeated” as she browses the racks and tries on dresses; she asks, “What’s the name of this store again?” All of this and more return to Kathleen as she mourns and ponders Nancy slow, irreversible decline. “The End of Pretending” ties a bow around the phase of denial:
I feel Nancy hunt and hunt for words,
as if she is rifling through a box of loose photos.
Mostly she just gives up, spits out a laugh,
Well it’s gone. I try to make light of it, fill in
the blanks, fall back on our inside jokes. That lifeline
is fraying (face it) from the weight of my furious grip.
Today, I attempt to reminisce about our cousins,
the big family gatherings. Her flat voice admits,
I don’t know who they are. And I hear
the first goodbye.
From this seed that captures Nancy’s steady decline, there are moments of light. “What a Difference the Right Meds Make,” delivers momentary jubilation as Kathleen visits Nancy, now under the care of trained nurses. Nancy seems better than before. She is chatting coherently, swaying to the vibrations of Mustang Sally, joy is bubbling out of mouths encouraging her. But the joy fades, like the slow decline of a light bulb . . . “I
realize my sister is still confused, / her memories jumbled, disappearing. / but her terror, my helplessness / in the face of it, has been lowered / to the bottom of the well. Reading Soliloquy to the Night Sky, I felt the gentle prodding of a shepherd, somehow knowing that I needed time to process the roller coaster of feelings she was experiencing. I haven’t considered, in this review, all the poems that deserve treatment. But as I read each one slowly, savoring their content, I somehow felt renewed in my soul. This is a gift of poetry. Only poetry can achieve the solace one needs at such an hour. I think of my brother Tom as I offer these unforgettable lines from “Acceptance”:
Let my sister lift up
and out
of her useless body.
Let her feel
my love rush
after her.
Let her float
in an ocean of light.
Warm, peaceful,
safe.
Let her memories
spark
within her soul,
brimming
and bright.
Let her sing
in a blur of joy,
I am whole.
“A prayer of sorts? Indeed, it is a prayer of sorts. Perhaps my brother Tom has met Nancy somewhere in heaven’s precincts . . . and with full throat they are singing, I am whole, praise God, I am whole!
~ Michael Escoubas
MICHAEL ESCOUBAS REVIEWS HER DRESS DOES A FLIP BY LYNN FITZGERALD
Her Dress Does a Flip by Lynn Fitzgerald, 27 poems ~ 55 pages. Dancing Girl Press
A Word About the Cover. I was instantly intrigued by Lynn Fitzgerald’s choice of a cover image for Her Dress Does a Flip. For this reviewer, the image suggested fun, craziness, mystery, and a kind of wily deception. I noted that the legs projecting from the carriage wear high heels. Right then I knew I was in for the buggy ride of my life! And I was right. I would buy this book simply for its entertainment value. But this collection is so much more. Her Dress Does a Flip seeks to penetrate to the core of what it means to be human. I must admit that my life-carriage often resembles Fitzgerald’s artistic life-metaphor.
A Word about Structure. The work is not divided into sections or parts. Its poems appear one after the other suggesting a cathartic journey within the poet’s life. It is as if Fitzgerald has determined to get everything said and gives her muse permission to become a fountainhead of poetic expression . . . expressions that MUST be expelled for the last time. In support of the above observation I am struck by Fitzgerald’s unconventional sonnet, “Sine Qua Non,” which I reproduce in full here:
The essential element we look for, what we lack
From our genes or chemistry, culture, religion.
This gap we seek to fill or at the very least to conceal
Lest we be thought of as lacking some primordial
Quality. The definition around which all else spins,
Creating an orbit, the unbroken circle we inhabit.
A circle we walk endlessly in until we
Come face to face with that one being
Who emanates everything we have missed
And we feel our orbit stretched into an angular
Geometry, some shape not our own, a shape
We wished to be. In resignation we settle
For that which is offered: a subtle, explosive gift
For which we have no words.
This poem seeks clarity about that which is vital for life. What will suffice? What is that one thing one cannot do
without that defines a “good life?” Throughout the collection FitzGerald is conversing with herself. Examining life here, evaluating her experiences there, enjoying the journey and not especially concerned with arriving at a destination. In the collection’s lead poem “il-logic” the poet creates an anomaly about love:
He can only imagine the world
She walks or wears her hair in
Love is a deprivation of sorts
Some logic lost, an interruption of integrity.
She can only imagine the world
He walks and wears his glasses in
Or how he doesn’t look at life but does.
Yet she knows how his hands feel
How definite the grasp
And this holds fast the dream,
The arm reaches with the fingers for the pen
The wrist supports the words.
Is this a poem or is it life?
The man stretches his dark coat across
His shoulders, walks through the doorway
Into his world and the woman steps
Inside her life, silent as a leaf falling to the ground.
Excursions into Life with Lynn Fitzgerald. With the above poems serving as foundation, Fitzgerald’s journey is just beginning. “How My Parents Meet,” is written in present tense as if she is watching what they do, noticing special things that drew them close. These paint a picture of love:
He remembers the color of her dress, the careless elegance,
of her step. She recalls the knot in his tie,
how she straightened it as he held her body to his—
he is her land. She steps ashore, the briny smell familiar,
but this has never happened before.
This lovely oracle must have brought joy, as the words tumbled forth as from the muses’ fountainhead. The poet stows her dream in her treasure chest of memories.
As I worked through the collection, I counted six poems which were “wildly” delightful with indentations. These are by design suggesting that this poet will not be confined or defined by convention. Poems such as “Paradise of Myself,” “Scotch on the Rocks,” “Pas de Deux,” and “Les Crudités,” are so revealing, so fresh, as to defy containment in traditional structures. I spent extra time with these poems and was richly rewarded.
With that said, Professor Fitzgerald (City Colleges of Chicago) is a seasoned practitioner of her craft. Her stanza productions feature couplets, tercets, quatrains, unique stanzaic mixtures, and long and short line combinations. Additionally, I was delighted when I encountered traditional forms such as villanelle, rondeau, and cento. Taken together, these round out a superior display of poetry acumen.
“Ordinary” is a poem I kept returning to. This poem profoundly speaks to the inner core of Lynn Fitzgerald. At the end of the day, the best poets elevate what most people miss and find Sine Qua Non:
I know I’ve left friends and missed each one
I’ve listened to a flock of geese as they have taken flight
in search of sunlight and warm sand
and I have considered what has been missed,
what I have not said, although felt, and why
this is so. How I must live with the thoughts of loss,
profound loss, while the trees chant remembrances
and I listen to the wind. I feel a hand rest on my shoulder,
hear someone calling me and then calling in the children from play
and someone else is arriving at the door, the buzzer blaring—
and here, while I contemplate loss
is the extravagance of ordinary life.
And this is precisely why Her Dress Does a Flip belongs on your library shelf.
~ Michael Escoubas
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