Review of COWBOY WRITES A LETTER & OTHER LOVE POEMS, by Elizabeth P. Glixman

Review of COWBOY WRITES A LETTER & OTHER LOVE POEMS, by Elizabeth P. Glixman, 36 pages, Pudding House Chapbooks, 3252 Parklane Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43221, ISBN 1-58998-932-5, $10

Review by Barbara Bialick

In this chapbook, the author shows a developing talent in intriguing imagery, which at times seems a little too obscure. She shows the reader that marital bliss is not totally blissful, but at the same time she can laugh at her own part in that, as she does in the first poem, “Husbands, Wives and Chocolate.” How could a chocolate addict hiding in the basement eating the ears of six chocolate bunnies have married a dentist! “In the pre-nuptial I agreed not to eat candy—I agreed that all that would/be sweet in my life would be him…”

The fun gets heavier as she moves the reader along. In “The Dividing Line” she’s with her husband in their bedroom, “When you spoke in Zeus like tones/If we had children I would devour them/Do away with irreverent reminders…”

But she shows she really gets something about marriage and motherhood, when she writes of herself as a blue baby born to her mother Bessie in “Bessie’s Blue Baby”: “Bessie promised everyone/I would grow to be a real beauty/even though I was blue/awkward entering life early/before my nine month trip was done./The family believed Bessie’s omniscience./She was the goddess of the house/the mother of all grandmothers/who said no before you asked a question/You wore your underwear on your head/if she said boo…I am perfect my hair is blonde/and my voice is lady like/as quiet as a lie.”

Elizabeth P. Glixman has a BFA in Studio Arts and an M.Ed in elementary education from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. This is her second chapbook from Pudding House. The first was “A White Girl Lynching” in 2008.

Check out her blog at http://elizabeth-in the moment.blogspot.com/