|
NIGHT LADDER By LOIS P. JONES WINNER OF THE 2017
BEST BOOK AWARD FROM GLASS LYRE PRESS SAINT JULIAN PRESS BOOK REVIEW from RON STARBUCK |
NIGHT LADDER by Lois P. Jones (Glass Lyre Press 2017) is a book composed in gracious poetic
thought and verse. It is a book, which dares us to converse closely with life
and a lost awareness of what it truly means to be alive. Flowing throughout
these pages is a symphony of verses and an orchestra of songs, which arise from
an eternal place we have always known.
Like the Orphic Hymns of the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, the
poet beseeches us to drink from the waters of Mnemosyne, to awaken and remember
that humanity is a part of something greater. Even when, especially when, human memory
leads to anguish, for out of our pain. We give birth to compassion and joy; we
help to heal the world.
“In your next
life, you will be birthed in needles of hoarfrost,” are the opening lines in
the poem FOAL. As a literary metaphor, the words in this poem invoke a memory
that there is something more at work within life, within the world, and within
and beyond the self. Selflessness.
FOAL
after reading “Fugue for Other Hands” by
Joseph Fasano
In your next life you will be
birthed in needles
of hoarfrost, your eyes still
in the blue gauze between
this world and the next . . .
. . . This is the start
of your suffering for the children,
yours who became
the wanderers . . .
The poem
calls out to the sorrow of life. In my own imagination, I see it as a promise.
An assurance that even in our brokenness, life is a mystery we cannot quite
name; a mystery in which we dwell. Here also, is the mystery that dwells within us, and draws out a sacrificial offering
for humanity that stretches across the ages. Each reader must call forth the poem’s
meaning and imagery within the context of their own experience and knowledge;
becoming the foal roaming “between this world and the next.”
The verses
summon mythic images of a sacred landscape and a heroic journey that bids us to
follow, which is ours to travel. And that this happens when the world falls out
of balance, harming creation. In
the poem’s last verse, we are offered a resolution, a hope, when asked to
wonder what will happen after we, “give up everything to winter.” In that
probing question, humanity is reminded of what we have surrendered, and what we
will sacrifice for our children in an insane uneven world. Everything.
In another
poem, THE SCENT OF ARIEL –– we are reminded of what it means to be
a traveler far from home, in another country. The poem is one of my favorites from NIGHT LADDER. It brings to mind a trip,
my wife and I, once took to San Miguel De Allende many years ago. In the reader’s imagination, it is easy
to become the poet; to enter her memories, as the poem captures with fondness
and feeling the flavor and culture of a colonial municipality tucked away in central
Mexico. There is something in each
line that elicits for the reader the same experience; this is a rare gift of
verse.
When the shuttle arrives at the old wooden doors,
her luggage bulging with too many dresses . . .
. . . when the teenage boy smiles after hauling the world
four flights of terra cotta steps to her room
with views of Calle Canal and red
rooftops . . .
. . . And if this country is not hers,
if some resent her place here, still Ariana
remembers her each year and brings extra towels
that smell sweet as a tamale husk . . .
In the poem titled PICASSO’S GARDEN we find art and verse appearing
together. The poem is inspired by
Picasso’s 1938 abstract portrait of French photographer, painter, and poet Dora
Marr – Seated Woman in a Garden.
An iconic image of Picasso’s art graces the page; his art and the poem’s verses
are paired in an exquisite fashion, creating pathos and telling the partial
story of two lovers. Two lovers, who in their time together enhance their
vision of life. Each lover expanding the other’s dreams and memories, and in
their relationship awaken an intimacy between them and within the whole. Lovers
who in their frailest moments do not always accept love’s fullest potential to
transform. Lovers who meet fatefully, and then stop seeing the miracle arising
between them, who misplace what is real and true in life. We, who cannot long
endure the inevitable separation of their souls from the beloved. And yet,
remain connected to one another by some mystery of risk and fortune.
He tears from my skin like a necessary
thorn, . . .
Plants me next to hollyhocks and winged seeds
of pine, places his paint brush in the tomato can,
demands I grow near wisteria. . . .
. . . I endure the scent of peat on his lips,
pack his brushes and pretend he is leaving, but we carry
one another’s seed. He will chase me into the afterlife.
In NIGHT
LADDER, what you will
treasure across all the interwoven pages and poems, of its gestalt – the
whole, is a mature and lyrical narrative of human relationships held within
creation. How, in this world,
humanity is touched by the spiritual and sensual. How life teaches us something new every
day, calls us into enduring and everlasting relationships. And that dwelling
there at the edge of our awareness is the presence and the memory of an even
greater mystery. Where we may become, more aware of the mystery in life,
perhaps not in every given moment, but in our most lucid intimate moments. We
do see – we do reclaim – we do become mindful of and celebrate a
miraculous life. An experience of life that we cannot always name clearly, not
today, not in this or that moment, or in all the moments we add together.
Still, in a much larger sense one that is filled with grace and Thanksgiving.
As these lines from BEYOND DIAGNOSIS imagine.
You’ve been carrying a body so long. Sometimes
you want to lose it like a dark country
even though you’ll have to return. Even though
some memory will ice and crack its way back
to you. No one could look
at infinity
all at once, just as there is no one to hear
every prayer, but there is a presence who watches
and grows near you like a Bloodgood,
stout and florid faced.
Astonishing in their grace, compelling in their beauty, these poems
are a remembrance, invoking a memory of the eternal and our sacred place within
creation. They call out to how the eternal, in its greatest mystery, moves in
and with and through us as a blessing – as life itself. Take the time to
read each one slowly, to cherish every stanza and verse. Read them out loud, to
those whom you are closest to in this life, and in public places too, amidst
the stranger. Let all of humanity,
drink from the waters of Mnemosyne and be restored.
RON STARBUCK
PUBLISHER–EDITOR
SAINT JULIAN PRESS, INC.
NIGHT LADDER
By LOIS P. JONES
Publisher: Glass
Lyre Press (July 10, 2017)
ISBN-10:
1941783376
ISBN-13:
978-1941783375
LOIS P. JONES is a recipient of the 2016 Bristol
Poetry Prize, 2012 Tiferet Poetry Prize and the 2012 Liakoura
Prize and was shortlisted for the 2016 Bridport Prize
in poetry. Her poetry has been published in anthologies including The Poet’s Quest for God (Eyewear Publishing), Wide Awake: Poetry of Los Angeles and
Beyond (The Pacific Coast Poetry Series), 30 Days (Tupelo Press) and Good-Bye Mexico (Texas Review Press). She has
work published or forthcoming in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Narrative, American Poetry Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, The Warwick Review, Cider Press Review and others. She is Poetry Editor
of Kyoto Journal, host of KPFK’s Poets Café (Pacifica
Radio) and co-hosts Moonday Poetry. Lois’s
poems have won honors under judges Fiona Sampson, Kwame Dawes, Ruth Ellen
Kocher and others.
Additional Sites & Links
Samsara: A Film: Poem by Lois P. Jones – Film by Dean Pasch
GLASS LYRE PRESS
|
AMAZON |
RON STARBUCK is the Publisher/CEO/Editor of Saint
Julian Press, a poet and writer, an Episcopalian, and author of There
Is Something About Being An Episcopalian, When Angels Are Born,
and Wheels Turning Inward, three rich collections of poetry,
following a poet’s mythic and spiritual journey that crosses easily onto the
paths of many contemplative traditions.
He has been deeply engaged in an Interfaith-Buddhist-Christian
dialogue for many years, and holds a lifelong interest in literature, poetry,
Christian mysticism, comparative literature and religion, theology, and various
forms of contemplative practice.
He has been a contributing writer for Parabola Magazine.
And has had poems and essays published in Tiferet: A Journal of
Spiritual Literature, an interview and poem in The Criterion: An
Online International Journal in English, The Enchanting Verses
Literary Review, ONE from MillerWords (Feb.
2016), and Pirene's Fountain,
Volume 7 Issue 15, from Glass Lyre Press (Oct. 2014), and Levure Littéraire (France –
2017). A collection of essays, poems, short stories, and audio recordings are
available on the Saint Julian Press, Inc., website under Interconnections.
RON STARBUCK
SAINT JULIAN PRESS, INC. © 2022
|
|
|
|
Web Hosting by IPOWER
|
|
|
As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.