Review of two for a journey by Carol Frith

Review of two for a journey by Carol Frith, David Robert Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, 95 pages, $18, 2010

By Barbara Bialick

I first reviewed Carol Frith for her chapbook Looking for Montrose Street in 2009. I called it “a good and powerful little book”—This full-length collection is not only good, great and powerful, but highly ambitious with it’s mixture of deep, image-packed lyrical lines of free verse about her “journey” through life with her husband, poet Laverne Frith, and its amazing set of 15 sonnets interwoven together in “The Neighbor’s Rose.” There are other formal poems as well. However I have to admit I was frustrated toward the end of the book when she presented more sonnets and more sonnets. These weren’t as masterfully woven into the marital love story and should have been left out in my opinion. Too structured for the the “two-getherness” of the rest of the book, and dull in comparison.

I’ll just give some examples of good poetry… “It is morning. The wind is gone. Pink sailboats/flutter on the blue bay. There are wrecks/everywhere, you tell me, submerged and dangerous/I am confused by the flickering pink scribbled/in the sky and water: Little candles of paint…”

Or, “All day tomorrow, on a narrow path/near water, you will button/and unbutton your shirt, bringing/full sentences outside into/the air…”

And this lovely line: “We live inside of each other’s closed eyes.”

It is difficult to just pick a quote from the sonnets called “The Neighbor’s Rose.” Everything is interconnected: “the air begins to seethe inside the room…”. On the other hand, perhaps she caged the couple into this intense structure just when they were having marital structure problems. Between the “formal” and the “free” works in this book, I think a lot of poets would do well to read what Frith is doing. It is interesting and fresh.

Carol and Lavern Frith live in Sacramento, California where they edit the journal Ekphrasis, which publishes poems addressing works of art. Clearly someone would do well to write a poem about the work of art called two for a journey…

Nick Jehlen and The Davis Square Tiles Project

Nick Jehlen and The Davis Square Tiles Project

By Doug Holder

Nick Jehlen is a dyed–in-the-wool Somervillian. His mother is Pat Jehlen the state senator. He grew up here, graduated Somerville High, Tufts University, and currently lives in the Davis Square section of Somerville. He works as a graphic designer for a number of non-profits in the area.

Jehlen and Katie Hargrove, along with the collaboration of two social action consulting agencies: “The Action Mile” and “The Think Tank that is yet to be named” have developed: “The Davis Square Tile Project”.

According to the history provided on the project’s website:

“During the 1978-79 school year, Jackson Gregory and Joan Wye of the Belfast Bay Tile Works worked with children aged five to thirteen at Somerville's Powderhouse Community School to create 249 tiles that were later installed in the Davis Square T stop. These tiles, part of the Arts on the Line program that placed art in and around MBTA stations, present a unique opportunity to look back at how Somerville has changed since the opening of the Red Line extension in 1984.”

Jehlen feels that these small, square bursts of art can act as a catalyst for conversations about where the city was in 1984 when the Davis Square T Stop opened, to where it is now, and to where it will be with the new Green Line extension in Union Square.

Jehlen told me that he has mixed feelings about the Davis Square T. On one hand the new T stop revitalized a stagnant square, on the other it displaced a large community of folks who could no longer afford to live there. Jehlen bemoaned the fact that many of his contemporaries who produced these tiles cannot afford to live in Somerville now.

Jehlen and his band of cohorts, as well as interested volunteers, are collecting stories and anecdotes from the creators of these tiles. A few still live in Somerville, but most, like flighty spores are spread all around the country. By capturing their stories Jehlen hopes people will better understand the history of Somerville.

Jehlen said there will be a number of exhibits of the tiles around town:

“There will be an opening reception for the tiles at Diesel Cafe on
Friday, April 16th at 6pm. Diesel is hosting about 20 of the tiles,
and there will also be on display at Johnny D's, Redbones, Sessa's
Italian Specialties, Magpie, and Downtown Wine and Spirits starting
this week of April 4, 2010. The tiles will be on display until May 23rd.”

The tiles are depictions of things you might expect from kids. There are pictures of their homes, creature features of dinosaurs and such, and even renditions of science experiments, to name just a few themes.

Jehlen told me a poignant story about one of the tile makers Brian Davidson. Davidson was a student at the Powder House School and he made these wonderful and detailed models of buses, trains and train stations. He died at the tender age of 31 at the Alewife T station from a heart attack. His teachers wrote Jehlen to tell his story.

Jehlen, 38, said even though he has lived in places like Madison, Wisconsin, he has kept a well-heeled foot in Somerville. He said Somerville feels like, well, home. He concluded: “The pastures are not greener elsewhere.”

King of the Jungle. By Zvi A. Sesling 2010 review by Hugh Fox

King of the Jungle. By Zvi A. Sesling 2010; 73pp; Ibbetson Street Press,25 School Street, Somerville, MA02143.$15.00.


Low-key, meditative, deep insights, accessible,personal, revelatory, as you’re reading through King of the Jungle you are brought very intimately into Sesling’s inner world: “I am sitting in my old rocking chair/on my lap is a solid book, thick with words...//the moon is scimitar shaped//offering little light, just a big grin in the gaping mouth of the night sky...//I sit in the rocker and watch he imperceptible movement toward darkness//or light wndering if we or some other civilization has made a base by which/the evenual control of the Earth becomes a reality rather and the material of//science fiction.” (“Moonlight,” p.6)


Everyday beginnings that slowly turn into bibliophilic musings about ultimate realities, a strange combination of Low Key and Ultimate Key, a strong sense of aloneness that triggers deep musings on historical-philosophical realities: “Morning consists of lying in bed/with talk radio...//Weekends in bed with talk radio/listen, listen//No one to talk to.” (“As Good as Dead,” p.50).


A very satisfying combination of the everyday and historical here: “The dust of bones has mingled with/Sand, and the wind whistles a funereal/March of the ancients who rise from/Graves to tell their lives...//king and slave/Equal in a future neither would have dreamed.” (“Archaeology,” p.51).Playing with irony, ultimately Sesling is both a personal story-teller and a prophet who sees his own life/world in the context of all-time and all-place.