Elegiac: Footnotes to Rilke's Duino Elegies
Elaine Terranova
Cervena Barva Press
2010 $7.00
Within this chapbook of longing, grief finds release, "It's true,
life reminds us of death and time, isn't that how life comes
to you…" The poems take flight, yet, grounded in history,
Elaine Terranova
they swim on the surface of the wide blue ocean, yet, the poems
sink into our psyche:
"…I was cold
I was in the iceberg of myself.
wringing my hands,
washing my face without water.
Having forgotten each rhyming wish.
Every word is a word of praise,
even a curse, a word of praise.
Utter it, and you are a beggar…"
By the end of the reading the reader realizes it is a journey influenced
by Rilke and completely the poets own experiences and her references
become personal tributes, the mythology of carnival, angels,
female deities:
…"The soft contours of an old photo.
Fine lines etched into a hill.
Motion stops. Smile locked
before it is imagined. A trip you didn't take,
bags you let go by without claiming.
There was the window, the line of light
that came between so we were separate.
What dawn pulled away, leaving us
to the normal operations of the world…"
Clearly this is the writing of an accomplished poets, with much to impart.
Cervena Barva Press gives us the most current writers, internationally as
well as our local voices. This is one of the chapbooks that implores us
to invest in our small presses.
Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor:
Wilderness House Literary Review
Reviewer:
Ibbetson Street Press
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