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Life in a Line Close to twenty years ago, I read a Crooker poem, "Raspberries," in the collection, The Lost Children. Until then, I had never found such erotic beauty in a fruit ... and beauty/redemption in what scars our lives, as in "Christ Comes to Centralia," from the same collection. With Line Dance the simple beauty remains, but each seems filled with particulars, e.g., in describing the Pennsylvania mountains, Crooker reveals: "... Blue, Allegheny, Kittatinny / Tuscarora, this big-muscled, broad-backed / hunk of a state." Or in listing the winters of impressionist artists: "Caillebotte's chimneys exhale like glamorous / women in a cafe." Crooker's strong metaphorical language inhabits the lines, but the poems seem airy and natural. Each word is perfectly placed; the line endings are natural--not straining toward the jarring/illogical effect of much contemporary poetry; and the final lines are lessons for anyone who has ever wondered how to end a poem. Other reviewers have mentioned the "autism poems," and anyone who reads such poems as "45s, LPs" will understand how, as in other fields of endeavour, less is more! The "less" in this and other poems that deal with the autism of her son, breaks our hearts--less is more. And, perhaps, in this amateur review, I should end with less: Buy and Read this Book. Line Dance In this, her second collection of poems, Barbara Crooker explores the territory of what brings us joy, of what breaks our hearts. Grief and love. "Grief and heart could be the same word," she suggests. "Both have / five letters; both rhyme / with blood." It's not sadness that occupies these poem, rather the idea that in spite of grief, there is joy in the simple things life offers: the swelling bud of a pink peony, grey juncos at her bird feeder, the autistic son who surprises her, the dead who dance at a wedding. Crooker has the ability to bring light into the darkest spaces; her poems burst with color: lemons and the lavish light of yellow, red hearts in windows facing a snowy landscape, brown-eyed sunflowers. There is music in these poems, in her deft use of language, in the surprising and oh-so satisfying way Crooker can bring in that last image, like a bow at the end of a performance. You will leave these poems dancing and satisfied, too, that you were allowed a few moments in the world of her extraordinary poetic ear and eye. I'm riffing on the warm air, the wing beats of my lungs that can take this all in, flush the heart's red peony, then send it back without effort or thought. And the trees breathe in what we exhale, clap their green hands in gratitude, bend to the sky. Excellent contemporary poems Barbara Crooker's poem are easy to like. She has a flair for words and images that touch the heart. It helps to read this book from beginning to end becuase she has organized the poems so beautifully around the central poem, "Line Dance." "Line Dance" Touches the Heart with Autism Poems I've been a Crooker fan from the moment I read one of her autism poems in MINDPRINTS. While I agree with everything said in the previous review, it is the autism poems that touched my heart most in this collection. I also have a son with autism, and I appreciate Barbara's ability to convey what it is like for both the parents and the child. There is another type of "line dance" we who live with autism must endure everyday. In "The Knot Garden," Crooker writes: ". . . Our road is more circuitous: two steps forward, one step back, a knot garden where the possiblities diminish and the years branch on. Too soon, we'll arrive at the alpine altitudes where the vegetation's scarce, the flowers tiny but exquisite, the foilage barely visible." "La Danse de Vivre" What Crooker has done with "dance" is splendid, so much so I will never see the word in the same manner for the rest of my life. Every poem is excellent, and all of them seamlessly unified with "la danse de vivre." Bravo to her! Larry D. Thomas 2008 Texas Poet Laureate Compare prices:
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