false 5 2 true false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 13:59:23 -0700 2009 Sun Nov 01 08:28:23 -0800 2009
Such is the case with the poems of Nanette Rayman Rivera in shana linda ~ pretty pretty. Throughout the 31 poems there drifted the scent of flowers, though not in a pretty, wallpaper or commercial bouquet way. Rather, the feel was of wildflowers growing in impossible places: the cracks in sidewalks, the perimeter of warehouses, the beaches of the tourist trade.

This despite the fact Ms. Rivera’s poetry covers the major obstacles in her life; trauma that is, unfortunately, too common and too commonly portrayed in clichéd ways. She writes about an emotionally-distant mother and of being raped and falling into homelessness.

Normally those subjects deter me, not because I’m unsympathetic, but because for many poets and writers, especially those newer to the craft, such crises take precedent over the art of the words. The telling too often takes on a bitter, pitying cast filled with common sensory descriptions, such as the smell of urine and the grime of clothes and the cold stares of passers-by.

Ms. Rivera don’t sink into that mundane, self-indulgent realm. Instead, the words and phrases touch the ground lightly, then leap away, the joy of living always present. Even when devastation looms, the joy — the play and sound and rhythm of the words — shines through a unique prism:

(From I saw him)

around the crook of the cape
thousands of Iceland Poppies, pistil
whipping, fizzing
the brewing water
with bubbly calyx, some matrix
ceremony for the ogler
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