Dragon Well Poems by Sandy McCord

Dragon Well
Poems by
Sandy McCord
Finishing Line Press
Georgetown KY
Copyright © 2010 by Sandy McCord
Softbound, 27 pages, $12
ISBN 1-59924-582-5

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Ever want to take a trip to China, but for any number of reasons did not...well Sandy McCord’s Dragon Well transports you there in magical ways. Her poems sparkle with
mountain dew, drips of water, the ancient and the modern, and my personal favorite in
this volume, “Xizhou Market”:

Cloud ears, poison ears,
monster free fungus,
chiles in claws and stars
of anise, sticks of cinnamon,
ginger fingers, ginseng
toes, heaps of leeks,
purple satin eggplants,
fat turbans of garlic,
garlands of corn, baby
bok choy, walnuts
and chestnuts, yams
charring in charcoal,
flat lotus babas
smoking on iron grills,
cucumbers like alligators

There is more to this poem that you will want to read, as you will all of McCord’s poetic endeavors including the real meaning of “Chang Jiang,” and the poems “Yuantong Si,” “Green Lake Morning” and all the rest.

There is also the title poem which opens the chapbook opens with “in fields of tea, a deep well/holds water thick and heavy/with age, its mouth open to rain.....and concludes with
...to leaves light with spring rain/and alive with energy released from winter/washes the tongue with a flash of fierce/green, a sweet fortune of gold.

Born in Nebraska, home of former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Koozer and now living in Kentucky, home of many poets, including Wendell Berry, to name one, she took her trip to China in 2007 which resulted in this volume of wonderful poems, which are sensitive,
honest and worth the effort of reading, especially if you like the cross culture poetry.