Review: To Cleave: Poems
To Cleave: Poems by Barbara Rockman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Barbara Rockman’s “To Cleave” is an amazingly beautiful, poignant,
powerful book. Here we find what we seldom do in a collection-a careful
eye that truly sees both the natural world and the very human; a craft
that seeks just the right word, not just for sense but for sound and
thus a music so often missing in contemporary poetry, rich in assonance,
alliteration, quiet and subtle half-rhymes, never overbearing, always
true.
Sections seem devoted to a backpacking trip, her childhood,
raising her daughters, natural disasters like Fukushima, married life,
love, loss, and love again. The emotion is not wrought with false notes
or strained surrealism. The images are carefully chose, metaphor and
symbolic truths living below their quiet surface. The domestic life
blends with the natural world. A certain knowledge of geology and
biology adds fullness. There are poems where she sews herself into
oneness with that natural world. The bittersweet taste of death and loss
add savor.
This is the finest collection of poetry by a
contemporary writer that I have read in too long a time. If you love
reading poetry, this is a meal and a dessert you will relish. If you are
poet, as am I, you will be filled that positive envy–the one that
drives you back to trying to sing with words the way Rockman does in
these poems. To be read and reread, I am certain.
