A World Less Perfect For Dying In
Ralph Pennel
Cervena Barva Press
W. Somerville, MA
Copyright © 2015 by Ralph Pennel
ISBN: 978-0-9861111-7-4
Softbound, 66 pages, $17
Review by Zvi A. Sesling
My favorite thing about poetry is discovering a poet who has written a book
of poems in which I get hooked the minute I read the first words, and better
yet, I feel the same way at the end. I
know people who hate to reach the end of a novel because they have become a
part of the book.
Ralph Pennel has done something similar me with this book of poetry. I hated
closing his debut volume as much as any book of poetry I have read. That includes some pretty good company for him
to join.
Most of the poems are a page long, some longer than a page. One of the shorter ones is “FREE THIS POEM IT
WANTS TO FLY”
You told me once about the day
your professor asked your class to write
poem about milkweed then loosed
a pod full into the air, the window open,
the sun shining in, a new autumn breeze blowing.
Everyone in the room watched closely,
heads turned as white tufts passed by –
ghosts, like the spirits of loved ones
freed into the open air.
One see floated down into your hair.
Your professor walked by and lifted it out, held it up for you to
see. You each smiled. But not at each other.
To yourselves, thinking hard
about who you wanted most to be set free.
Here are a couple of short quotes from two other long poems. The first is “WHAT WE’VE COME TO EXPECT FROM
BEAUTY”
It is midnight. My apartment is quiet.
I can hear the cars rushing down Somerville Avenue,
my neighbor shedding her clothes to the floor –
the faint shuffle of feet, the scrape of a hanger.
And I think about her now.
The second poem
is “JUST OFF THE HENNEPIN BRIDGE
From here,
downtown is magnificent. Bold. Stark.
Bright, against
the dull haze of cloud cover. Light
fits so easily
into so many different places:
in the office
windows across the river, in the face of the moon,
in the puddles
that still dot the earth after this afternoon’s rain.
Even in these
bricks in the street, as if placed her like seeds.
This is a book of
poetry I will cherish because I will want to read the beauty of Ralph Pennel’s
words over and over. His poetry is a
winner and Cervena Barva Press is a winner for bringing it to lovers of poetry.
__________________________________________
Zvi A. Sesling
Reviewer for Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene
Author, King of the Jungle (Ibbetson St., 2010) and
Across Stones of Bad Dreams
(Cervena Barva, 2011)
Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review
Publisher, Muddy
River Books
Editor, Bagel Bards Anthologies 7& 8
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