False Spring

Following in the footprints of Amy Clampitt and Robert Creeley - two of our greatest contemporary naturalist poets - Gloria Monaghan offers this exquisite collection. But, like all other prints left on a nature trail, her footprints are distinctly her own - whether tender, rhapsodic, wistful or sardonic. This trail begins in a cemetery where flowers are left to flourish in the water of tears. It then moves naturally to memories of the poet's father, siblings, a former love, and her children. In all of these poems - and in the others offered here - the words stun in their Dickinsonian simplicity and beauty. "The smell of my daughter's hair breaks my heart."Even when she is describing a grim crime scene ("The police search the reeds and the water ... in the hope of finding a body"), she returns and finds/offers solace in the natural world ("Did your body smell like an ocean?"). As befits good poetry, each poem here jars, prods, provokes, disturbs - even in a love poem - often with a sly sense of humor ("Your smell escapes me") or bitter regret ("The daylight / never ceases to astonish / ... as if that's all we need"). The richly textured images leave the reader glad to have taken the trek. It is a journey to which the lucky reader will return time and again, each time discovering new growth. - Neil Silberblatt, Founder/Director, Voices of Poetry; Author, Past Imperfect (Nixes Mate Books, 2018), nominated for Mass. Book Award in Poetry