This is a moving book of poetry. I found myself immersed in many of the poems. Although I couldn't much relate to the wife/love side of things (I've sort of renounced romance/true love over the past several years...cynical, I know), I very much related to the poems about family and motherhood.
This poem about the importance of family is one of my favorites...
GOLD RING
The one with big and small diamonds
on my left ring finger
belonged to Grandma
everybody comments on it
quite stunning
and kind of ugly, too
the way a grandma ring can be
a bit clunky and overwrought
the gems have a story
the grubby tiny ones
from their original engagement
on the California coast
north of Malibu
that place where two giant rocks
come to a head
and the surf tumbles around
the gods inside
at war with each other
he said, I love you, Doll
he said that
and how could she not answer?
all they had
this thing they were making up
other stones came
from a wedding band
one for each anniversary
(their 25th, their 50th)
the large "bling" jewels
you could say
and all of it
deconstructed, reconstructed
like marriage goes
bound up
in one crazy sculpture
when she died
he gave it to me
we stood in the blue bedroom
where she took the last terrible gasps
sailed off
on a sea of silent dreams
he opened the drawer and said
Seventy five years, seventy-five years
I don't know what I'll do
without her
and pressed the ring
into my palm
all that preciousness
my grandpa never talked much
until she got sick
and then I visited regularly
though she hardly knew me anymore
he was glad for the company
and the words tumbled out
now I come all the time
we sit in his backyard
talking about birds
about his roses
he tends with such care
and the bright red feeder
swinging over our heads
glitters in the sun
its perfect geometry
sugar and water mixed
for the hummingbirds
the moment they sip
so sweet they can't resist
coming back for more
Such a touching poem of familial legacy and love. Beautiful.
This next one speaks to me of motherhood, of wanting the best for your child, and your heart breaking over the rejection they might inevitably receive. We mothers with our unconditional love for them...sometimes we can't quite grasp the thought of everyone not loving them as we do. Side note: A holiday, Valentine's Day, which I hate, that can make someone painfully aware of their aloneness and of being rejected, especially for adolescents.
LUPERCALIA
The ides of February are brutal,
Love's sticky sentiments
gumming up the air
make it harder
to breathe. Gilded truffles
snug in their cellophane tombs
dare you to pluck them
from underneath
and eat. Hearts dangle
in pharmacy windows
pretending to pump real red.
Brutal for a boy who feels
but won't say
what it is to be sixteen
and never one secret admirer,
never a glitter doily
or silver Hallmark
waxed with lipstick's
smoky kisses. What ghost
can this mother conjure?
What diaphanous caress?
When in Rome
and if long ago, I could run
naked through alley ways,
my breasts swinging
like fevered trolls,
like devil bells bared,
tolling resident evil. I could
don a goat-skin cap,
carry my pot
of flames to the desert,
burn salted meal-cakes
with vestal virgins
and raise them
to the stars,
to dead crows
and broken Caesars. But
it wouldn't change the fact
of his incomplete beauty,
how girls turn away
when he opens his mouth to speak
a sound less than smart.
Won't change the fact
of his gawky bust
and uncommon sense,
an art far too wild
and no longer cradled
in the cave of a darkened living room,
where once we rocked
and he suckled, at times, stopped
to let glide
the nipple from his mouth
and look up at me,
just look at me...
his future,
his mother
and unconditional lover,
his only Valentine.
Here's a video of Lupercalia being read by the poet, Michelle Bitting...
Yup, this one had me in tears. Mothers will understand.
Moving, poignant, illuminating. Words I would use to describe this wonderful book of poetry.
About the book
These meditations, cosmic-toned, yet utterly visceral, demonstrate Michelle Bitting’s continuing growth and power as a poet of love, loss, the daily and deeply human experience, together with a maturing eye to understanding greater mythological tropes. Woven throughout her contemplation of the terrible beauty and struggle of family dynamics, corporeal desire, the injustices and revelations of life in the 21st century, thrums a vital connectivity to the mystic and mythological strains of the past, newfangled to the present in a way that ultimately sheds light on what it is to be alive and conscious of who we’re called to be.
To read Michelle’s poetry is to take a wild, passionate ride through the rubble of the quotidian, to be shocked by sensual discovery and awakened to a relentless curiosity for both the surreal and historical. These poems travel–an expansion in service of communion with the world, confrontation and acceptance of self.
Here’s what others are saying:
In a multi-directional “one shape” of voices, time, people, spaces Bitting takes us in and out of her all seeing third eye poetics. We go into an orb of family, love, then we swoop out into the delight of humanity. And, in a sense, these refractions are the “the self’s / shady daguerreotype coming to surface / through exposure to light.” In day-to-day terms we find enlightenment and paradox—“ of death and peppermint,” of “birth and strange beauty,” of “Elysium nothingness” and “mythmaking machinery.” I find Michelle’s cosmic mechanics fused with historical platforms akimbo and the “sheen” of personal meditations, a rare accomplishment. A unique treasure of visions and voice. –Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate of the United States
There’s delirious beauty tumbling down every page of The Couple Who Fell To Earth. Michelle Bitting’s poems deal with the domestic and the feral; I’m caught up in “Eden-scorched mouths,” and “a sea of furrowed manes and exoskeletons,” and I never want to leave. She confronts personal history, the familiar body, the spiritual world, and the human condition in rich, wildly original language. –Bianca Stone, Author ofSomeone Else’s Wedding Vows
Michelle Bitting is a poet of the natural world but in a completely Transcendental sense. Like Emerson, her poems seem to claim that, even in the face of all kinds of traumatic loss, “beauty breaks in everywhere.” The Couple Who Fell to Earth holds things of the world up to the eye in an effort to glimpse heaven, or as Bitting herself says, “Accept me. I love the dawn. / The sun is a sea / I throw myself into…” This book is all heart. –Jericho Brown, Author of The New Testament
About the poet
Michelle Bitting’s first collection, Good Friday Kiss (C & R, 2008) won the DeNovo First Book Award. Her second collection, Notes To The Beloved (SPC, 2011) won the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award and received a starred review from Kirkus. Poems have been published in the American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative, The L.A. Weekly, diode, Linebreak, and The Paris-American, and have been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University and is currently a Ph.D candidate in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She grew up in Los Angeles near the ocean.
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GIVEAWAY
Thanks for this unique and beautiful giveaway which I would treasure. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com
ReplyDeleteThanks for the chance to win this book! kmichellec87(at)yahoo(dot)com
ReplyDeletePoetry has always been an outlet for the more serious pastoral writing I used to do. I am looking forward to this beautiful collection.
ReplyDeleteals(at)foxgull(dot)com
I love poems, and would enjoy reading this book. Thanks for this chance.
ReplyDeleteayancey1974(at)gmail(dot)com
I don't qualify for the giveaway, living in the farthest reaches of the planet (Canada), but I had to comment on how beautiful these poems are. My heart is being squeezed.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I sorta love that the cover of this book doesn't look like the cover of a book of poetry (whatever that means). And I sorta love those poems, too!
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