Thursday, August 18, 2011

Improbable Music: Poems by Sandra Kohler






Improbable Music
Poems by Sandra Kohler
Word Press
Cincinnati OH
Copyright © 2011 by Sandra Kohler
ISBN: 9781936370368
Softbound, 114 pages, no price listed


Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Sandra Kohler is an interesting poet for her dreams, which occur with regularity in this book, perhaps explained in the poem “Alpe di Lune.” In v. she reveals “The buildings of childhood live in us,/recur, unchanged, in our dreams.”

Indeed there are recurring dreams throughout this book dreams and realities of death, loss, the violence of war and its resulting deaths, roads of loneliness and failure that do not reach dead ends but continue on through life.

In fact when Ms. Kohler sticks to these themes her poetry seems strong and reality based despite the crutch of dreams. However, when she wanders from her emotional roads into the highways of religion and politics, she will lose all but the most ardent reader and everyone who does not agree with her views on these two subjects that a fraught with failure for one who does not handle them carefully, perhaps delicately, perhaps with more thought for the ones she seems to criticize and the reasoning behind greater things in life
(and death) than she seems to grasp.

Perhaps, as the ending of “The Cup” her poems are written with “The cup of ego, the cup of emptiness.” And, frankly, if you are not prepared it may weigh you down. However, if you like this kind of poetry – and apparently there are many who do – you may really get into this book and find in it, if not joy, perhaps some truths.

No comments:

Post a Comment