Yes, the Maple Leaf Bridge poem has a lovely gentle sway and a delicate
chinoiserie (sp? -forgotten it) of feeling.
2009/4/29 MC Ward <[log in to unmask]>
> Published by Phantom Rooster Press ([log in to unmask]), this
> 28-page chapbook is attractively illustrated with sketches by the author.
> The poems are similarly attractive, often graceful sketches in their own
> right, as in the delicate Maple Leaf Bridge Sheep Stop (after Jang Ji.
> China, 800 A.D.), which I quote in full:
>
> the moon sinks
> a crow screams
> all is frozen
> even the sky
>
> I face a bank of red leaf maples
> a lone fishing boat light
> and sleepless worry
>
> at midnight
> outside Soo Jo city
> a Shan Mountain Temple bell
> sounds against our boat
> I am a stranger here
>
> Boats, indeed, are a recurring image in POEMS, as in these lines from
> Opened More:
>
> our earthy vessel
> dips and rises
> dripping sea
>
> or these, from Our Country:
>
> our boat slides
> under treefall
> risks wet canyon walls
>
> Everywhere, this sort of acute observation occurs, even ultimately of the
> eye itself, wryly observed:
>
> we want to know
> if it works with us
> or against us
>
> Everywhere as well is a robust sensuality, whether of the natural world or
> the human body, as in these lines from Reverse Palimpsest, describing the
> waking effect of a dream of poppies:
>
> the scarlet explode
> carries me again
> to my dream mound
> maidenhair curling
> through thick moss
>
> or these, from Ive Not Chosen to Leave You:
>
> belly buttoned
> shy and sly
> breast tips
> blind to touch
>
> As above, Prince likes to play with internal and slant rhyme:
>
> your hurt pours out
> a chill grey moat
> a snake around
> our hot desire
>
> (Spiced Wine)
>
> But it is her use of imagery that captures the attention of the reader, as
> in the unlikely pairing of images in This Earthly Cycled Hope (perhaps the
> major poem of the collection)--a possum in a persimmon tree and a
> housepainter who torches the house he has just painted:
>
> the possum who eats carrion
> the lost soul who burns his job
>
> a pair of images that is in turn set against that of a neglected house
> plant suddenly blooming
>
> in spring
> the moment to which
> all deaths point
>
> Oh, and for fans of Vile Boris, there is a love poem addressed to him
> (Catterings)!
>
> Candice Ward
>
>
> (Eye Operation)
>
>
>
>
--
David Bircumshaw
"Nothing can be done in the face
of ordinary unhappiness" - PP
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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