by Deborah Diemont
Copyright 2012 by Dos
Madres Press inc.
Dos Madres Press
Loveland OH 45140
Softbound, 43 pages,
no price
ISBN 978-1-933675-75-6
Review by Zvi A. Sesling
For those of us who live in
New England Deborah Diemont seems a candidate to replace “Wrong Way
Corrigan.” She spends winters in Syracuse NY, with its lake effect
snow and summers in Mexico. So being bi-lingual, one would expect
the poems in Diverting Angels to be in English and Spanish. However,
it is all English, which is a benefit to many of us.
The books is one of
sonnets, broken into different construction: 14 lines, the standard
sonnet, 4-4-6, 4-4-4-2, 4-4-3-3 and of course 8-6.
These are fascinating
poems telling stories about people places, things that keep you into
each one through the fourteen lines. Take for example Housemate a
bittersweet, humorous verse in which we learn that furniture and
jealousy make a bad combination:
The walls loomed a metallic
oyster gray.
The lamps, Tiffany roses
upside-down
bloomed to themselves. Stray
artifacts broke ground
in dusty corners where
the baby played.
For less than half the rent –
the room in back –
I shared the lap dance of
another’s life,
cast iron rusted with soap, a
hobbled bike,
a garden overgrown with
Grickle-grass
Perhaps we’d be friends now
if I hadn’t paired
my shaky antique chairs with
missing screws
and her deco table, showing
too much wear
before I stained with my mug.
Nor stared,
discreetly, at her new
boyfriend’s tattoo,
a butterfly that straws
fermented air.
Ms. Diemont has
intriguing titles such as A Modest Blindness, Mountain and Spine,
Face Book, The Last Time I Read People, The Poet in Victoria’s
Secret™, Photos in Newsweek. All the poems live up to my
expectations. They provide insight into a poet whose views
ultimately coordinate with life, all types of people and of course,
the reader.
In Mountain and Spine
I like the mountain, I adore
your spine,
the way you stand as if
pulled by a string
toward the sky, palms turned
out by your hips.
And how you steeple, arch,
curve down to dive.
How emptiness exacts a
transformation –
dog-to-cat, child-to-warrior,
a tree
where right foot meets the
left thigh easily.
Your toes dig in like roots,
and your frustration
powers down, with knees and
chest and chin
against the floor. I like
best when you clasp
your hands in prayer, right
at the end, akin
to someone who believes. Roll
up your mat –
crave nicotine, pour coffee.
We’re aligned,
my tree, my mountain. I adore
your spine.
If find her poems compelling
in that they don’t go where I expect them to go, like Grandmother,
which begins one way and end another is typical of Diemont’s verse.
In To Dye Or Henna a whole
lifetime passes in fourteen lines, an explanation of a woman’s
thoughts and her history.
This is a book of
poetry I savored and which I believe you will as well.
____________________________________________________
Zvi A. Sesling
Reviewer, Boston
Area Small Press and Poetry Scene
Author, King
of the Jungle and Across
Stones of Bad Dreams
Editor, Muddy
River Poetry Review
Editor,
Bagel Bards Anthology 7
Editor,
Bagel Bards Anthology 8
No comments:
Post a Comment