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Mules of Love
Balancing heart-intelligent intimacy and surprising humor, the poems in Ellen Bass’s Mules of Love illuminate the essential dynamics of our lives: family, community, sexual love, joy, loss, religion and death. The poems also explore the darker aspects of humanity—personal, cultural, historical and environmental violence—all of which are handled with compassion and grace. Bass’s poetic gift is her ability to commiserate with others afflicted by similar hungers and grief. Her poem "Insomnia" concludes: "may something/ comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze, rain/ on the roof, Chopin’s Nocturnes, the thought/ of your child’s birth, a kiss,/ or even me—in my chilly kitchen/ with my coat on—thinking of you."
Ellen Bass is co-author (with Laura Davis) of the best-selling The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins 1988, 1994), which has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into nine languages. She has also published several volumes of poetry, and her poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Double Take, and Field. In 1980, Ms. Bass was awarded the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati. Last year, she won Nimrod/Hardman’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, judged by Thomas Lux. She was nominated for a 2001 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, where she has taught creative writing for 25 years. She has also taught writing workshops at many conferences nationally and in Mallorca, Spain.
Ellen Bass is co-author (with Laura Davis) of the best-selling The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins 1988, 1994), which has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into nine languages. She has also published several volumes of poetry, and her poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., Double Take, and Field. In 1980, Ms. Bass was awarded the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati. Last year, she won Nimrod/Hardman’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, judged by Thomas Lux. She was nominated for a 2001 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, where she has taught creative writing for 25 years. She has also taught writing workshops at many conferences nationally and in Mallorca, Spain.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
December 22, 2021
the epic highs (everything on the menu, remodeling the bathroom, backdoor karaoke, for my daughter on her twenty-first birthday, bearing witness, the thing is, sleeping next to the man on the plane, and what if i spoke of despair, insomnia) and lows (tulip blossoms, can’t get over her, tigers and people, marriage without sex) of ellen bass—sometimes baffling but otherwise intoxicating.
“how does the love keep swelling in the cavities of our frail bodies, how do these husks hold so much jagged pleasure in their parched split skins?” i could live forever now.
“how does the love keep swelling in the cavities of our frail bodies, how do these husks hold so much jagged pleasure in their parched split skins?” i could live forever now.
July 23, 2016
from "I Love the Way Men Crack"
I love the way men crack
open when their wives leave them,
their sheaths curling back like the split
shells of roasted chestnuts, exposing
the sweet creamy meat. They call you
and unburden their hearts the way a woman
takes off her jewels, the heavy
pendant earrings, the stiff lace gown and corset,
and slips into a loose kimono. [...]
they grow younger and younger. They cry
with the unselfconciousness of children.
When they hug you, they cling.
Like someone who's needed glasses for a long time—
and finally got them-they look around
just for the pleasure of it: the detail,
the sharp edges of what the world has to offer.
These raw poems caught me off guard. I heard this one above first at a gathering with friends, and as it progressed I felt my breath catch as I began to recognize what she described so fully as if it were happening. Then I had to find this book and see what else she had written.
from "And what if I spoke of despair"
...Maybe I can’t
offer you any more than you can offer me—
but what if I stopped on the trail, with shreds
of manzanita bark lying in russet scrolls
and yellow bay leaves, little lanterns
in the dim afternoon, and cradled despair
in my arms, the way I held my own babies
after they’d fallen asleep, when there was no
reason to hold them, only
I didn’t want to put them down.
What I found in reading these poems one afternoon is that they always speak from the gut, whether regarding lust or parental love or romance or solitude. There's nothing superficial or inauthentic here, or merely witty; it is all fully real, like she cleaves these experiences from the flesh of those she encounters.
I love the way men crack
open when their wives leave them,
their sheaths curling back like the split
shells of roasted chestnuts, exposing
the sweet creamy meat. They call you
and unburden their hearts the way a woman
takes off her jewels, the heavy
pendant earrings, the stiff lace gown and corset,
and slips into a loose kimono. [...]
they grow younger and younger. They cry
with the unselfconciousness of children.
When they hug you, they cling.
Like someone who's needed glasses for a long time—
and finally got them-they look around
just for the pleasure of it: the detail,
the sharp edges of what the world has to offer.
These raw poems caught me off guard. I heard this one above first at a gathering with friends, and as it progressed I felt my breath catch as I began to recognize what she described so fully as if it were happening. Then I had to find this book and see what else she had written.
from "And what if I spoke of despair"
...Maybe I can’t
offer you any more than you can offer me—
but what if I stopped on the trail, with shreds
of manzanita bark lying in russet scrolls
and yellow bay leaves, little lanterns
in the dim afternoon, and cradled despair
in my arms, the way I held my own babies
after they’d fallen asleep, when there was no
reason to hold them, only
I didn’t want to put them down.
What I found in reading these poems one afternoon is that they always speak from the gut, whether regarding lust or parental love or romance or solitude. There's nothing superficial or inauthentic here, or merely witty; it is all fully real, like she cleaves these experiences from the flesh of those she encounters.
October 24, 2015
Read this because it has my one of my favorite poems, The Thing Is, and I have always meant to read it in context, and I am so glad I did. This collection is diverse and beautiful. Sexual poems, poems about long time partnerships, what if wonderings, ordinary days, grief, worry - all the makings of life.
And this beautiful long poem, that I won't quote all of here, called "Bearing Witness," which is all about child abuse and neglect, and how much we'd all rather ignore it, and go to the movies for false adrenaline rushes, then acknowledge it in our neighborhoods. And I think the last two stanzas really pay homage to those who do listen, like the therapists, the caregivers, the best friends. And the last seven lines are just a punch in the gut of painting what too many children suffer. Anyway, here it is:
And if we stop, all our fears
will come to pass. The knowledge of evil
will coat us like grease
from a long shift at the griddle. Our sweat
will smell like the sweat of the victims.
And this is why you do it--listen
at the outskirts of what our species
has accomplished, listen until the world is flat
again, and you are standing on its edge.
This is why you hold them in our arms, allowing
their snot to smear your skin, their sour
breath to mist your face. You listen
to slash the membrane that divides us, to plant
the shiny seed of yourself
in the common earth. You crank
open the rusty hinge of your heart
like an old beach umbrella. Because God
is not a flash of diamond light. God is
the kicked child, the child
who rocks alone in the basement,
the one fucked so many times
she does not know her name, her mind
burning like a star.
And then immediately following that was my favorite poem:
The Thing Is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
And this beautiful long poem, that I won't quote all of here, called "Bearing Witness," which is all about child abuse and neglect, and how much we'd all rather ignore it, and go to the movies for false adrenaline rushes, then acknowledge it in our neighborhoods. And I think the last two stanzas really pay homage to those who do listen, like the therapists, the caregivers, the best friends. And the last seven lines are just a punch in the gut of painting what too many children suffer. Anyway, here it is:
And if we stop, all our fears
will come to pass. The knowledge of evil
will coat us like grease
from a long shift at the griddle. Our sweat
will smell like the sweat of the victims.
And this is why you do it--listen
at the outskirts of what our species
has accomplished, listen until the world is flat
again, and you are standing on its edge.
This is why you hold them in our arms, allowing
their snot to smear your skin, their sour
breath to mist your face. You listen
to slash the membrane that divides us, to plant
the shiny seed of yourself
in the common earth. You crank
open the rusty hinge of your heart
like an old beach umbrella. Because God
is not a flash of diamond light. God is
the kicked child, the child
who rocks alone in the basement,
the one fucked so many times
she does not know her name, her mind
burning like a star.
And then immediately following that was my favorite poem:
The Thing Is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
November 19, 2019
Great collection 😏
May 31, 2024
4.5
"...may something / comfort you-a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell / of crushed mint, Chopin's nocturnes, / your child's birth, a kiss, / or even me-in my chilly kitchen / with my coat over my nightgown-thinking of you"
i've loved this line for so long and had no idea it was ellen bass! she is climbing her way quickly up my list of favorite poets. so much of what she explores in her work are themes i try to explore in mine; i feel like i'm learning so much from reading her books! have to own them immediately.
this collection wasn't quite as strong as her other two that i've read in my opinion, but still so good!
"...may something / comfort you-a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell / of crushed mint, Chopin's nocturnes, / your child's birth, a kiss, / or even me-in my chilly kitchen / with my coat over my nightgown-thinking of you"
i've loved this line for so long and had no idea it was ellen bass! she is climbing her way quickly up my list of favorite poets. so much of what she explores in her work are themes i try to explore in mine; i feel like i'm learning so much from reading her books! have to own them immediately.
this collection wasn't quite as strong as her other two that i've read in my opinion, but still so good!
August 19, 2020
poetry can be tough can’t it? I blame the way we are taught poetry in school and the poems we are made to study and then analyse. I’m not blaming our wonderful teachers more a very poorly constructed poetry curriculum. Because I believe passionately that poetry, is so god-damn personal. It speaks to us all in such different ways because our experiences are all so different. What we love is so different. The poems I love may be poems you hate and so on. For me if it rhymes too much and isn’t about passion, love, sex or feelings I don’t tend to be interested.
Luckily this compilation from Ellen Bass of her wonderful poems covers all of the themes I love. They are so intimate and speak which such clarity and wisdom on everyday things but also the big things - “and you say, yes, I will take you / I will love you again.”
Even when she writes about the ordinary and the mundane she puts it beautifully and for someone who is constantly anxious about whether I am wasting my life being ordinary this is a good thing.
I enjoyed this collection of poems - as always I liked some, just read others and then BAM there were some that spoke to me so clearly they made me cry. I look forward to discovering more of her work.
Luckily this compilation from Ellen Bass of her wonderful poems covers all of the themes I love. They are so intimate and speak which such clarity and wisdom on everyday things but also the big things - “and you say, yes, I will take you / I will love you again.”
Even when she writes about the ordinary and the mundane she puts it beautifully and for someone who is constantly anxious about whether I am wasting my life being ordinary this is a good thing.
I enjoyed this collection of poems - as always I liked some, just read others and then BAM there were some that spoke to me so clearly they made me cry. I look forward to discovering more of her work.
December 21, 2021
— “So here’s a prayer
for the wakeful, the souls who can’t rest:
As you lie with eyes
open or closed, may something
comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell
of crushed mint, Chopin’s Nocturnes,
your child’s birth, a kiss,
or even me—in my chilly kitchen
with my coat over my nightgown—thinking of you.”
for the wakeful, the souls who can’t rest:
As you lie with eyes
open or closed, may something
comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell
of crushed mint, Chopin’s Nocturnes,
your child’s birth, a kiss,
or even me—in my chilly kitchen
with my coat over my nightgown—thinking of you.”
June 18, 2020
some of these were just weird. i didn’t expect to be reading poems about assholes as tulip blossoms, or missing “the nudge” of penises, or other things i don’t really want to write out. these were all well-written, well-structured--the similes in particular were fantastic. but did i like most of these poems? did i like what they were about? not really.
all that said “the thing is” is printed out and displayed in my phone case. so i obviously think ellen bass is a great poet, and she does have a few other poems in this collection that i really love:
If There Is No God
For My Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday
Oh Demeter
The Moon
And What If I Spoke of Despair
but as a whole, after having read a stunning collection by jericho brown where i loved each poem as much as the last, this was disappointing.
all that said “the thing is” is printed out and displayed in my phone case. so i obviously think ellen bass is a great poet, and she does have a few other poems in this collection that i really love:
If There Is No God
For My Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday
Oh Demeter
The Moon
And What If I Spoke of Despair
but as a whole, after having read a stunning collection by jericho brown where i loved each poem as much as the last, this was disappointing.
October 5, 2018
3.5 stars. I like her straight-forward style, her poems about aging and sex, and some of her parenting poems. This one I might share at the library for Poem of the Month:
Basket of Figs
Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,
warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks. Show me
the detail, the intricate embroidery
on the collar, tiny shell buttons,
the hem stitched the way you were taught,
pricking just a thread, almost invisible.
Unclasp it like jewels, the gold
still hot from your body. Empty
your basket of figs. Spill your wine.
That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it,
cradling it on my tongue like the slick
seed of pomegranate. I would lift it
tenderly, as a great animal might
carry a small one in the private
cave of the mouth.
Basket of Figs
Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,
warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks. Show me
the detail, the intricate embroidery
on the collar, tiny shell buttons,
the hem stitched the way you were taught,
pricking just a thread, almost invisible.
Unclasp it like jewels, the gold
still hot from your body. Empty
your basket of figs. Spill your wine.
That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it,
cradling it on my tongue like the slick
seed of pomegranate. I would lift it
tenderly, as a great animal might
carry a small one in the private
cave of the mouth.
January 2, 2019
This is one of my favorite works of poetry; I’ve dog-eared so many pages. Ellen is an incredibly talented writer and poet. I had the pleasure of attending a writing workshop taught by Ellen and it was wonderful to hear her perspective on writing first-hand—I re-read Mules of Love after the workshop, and I loved discovering new things that I hadn’t noticed before. This book is a beautiful work of art! Highly recommend.
March 30, 2018
I absolutely LOVED this collection.
I galloped through it, but I'm going to go back and savour these poems at a slower pace.
She's a brilliant writer - no bullshit about her.
I galloped through it, but I'm going to go back and savour these poems at a slower pace.
She's a brilliant writer - no bullshit about her.
November 7, 2019
Absolutely gorgeous. I simply adore Ellen. She always sees the connections, those tiny details that make anything shine like a sun.
May 20, 2024
I never expected to become someone who reads poetry. I like Ellen Bass’s compassion and love for the world around her. I really loved Basket of Figs, The Thing Is, and Insomnia. Everything on the Menu, Backdoor Karaoke, For My Daughter on Her Twenty First Birthday, Happiness After Sorrow, And What If I Spoke of Despair were good too.
“Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,
warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks”
“So here’s a prayer
for the wakeful, the souls who can’t rest:
As you lie with eyes
open or closed, may something
comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell
of crushed mint, Chopin’s Nocturnes,
your child’s birth, a kiss,
or even me—in my chilly kitchen
with my coat over my nightgown—thinking of you.”
“In poems joy and sorrow are mates.
They lie down together, their hands
all over each other, fingers
swollen in mouths,
nipples chafed to flame, their sexes
fitting seamlessly as day and night.”
“How does the love keep
swelling in the cavities of our frail bodies,
how do these husks hold so much jagged
pleasure in their parched split skins?”
“Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,
warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks”
“So here’s a prayer
for the wakeful, the souls who can’t rest:
As you lie with eyes
open or closed, may something
comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell
of crushed mint, Chopin’s Nocturnes,
your child’s birth, a kiss,
or even me—in my chilly kitchen
with my coat over my nightgown—thinking of you.”
“In poems joy and sorrow are mates.
They lie down together, their hands
all over each other, fingers
swollen in mouths,
nipples chafed to flame, their sexes
fitting seamlessly as day and night.”
“How does the love keep
swelling in the cavities of our frail bodies,
how do these husks hold so much jagged
pleasure in their parched split skins?”
June 2, 2023
This book of poetry was so good I just cracked open the cover to begin again.
December 14, 2024
wow okay I’m so mad i didn't get a physical copy of this to mark the shit out of. this was beautiful and i may have a new favorite poet?!?!
January 20, 2025
No poem stood out to me but all very touching 😄
November 23, 2023
such a wonderful wonderful wonderful book of poems thank u Ellen bass
September 27, 2020
[84/166]
"God is
the kicked child, the child
who rocks alone in the basement,
the one fucked so many times
she does not know her name, her mind
burning like a star."
--Bearing Witness
"I’d grabbed for the moon
and held it in my
hands, steaming, luminescent,
impossibly bright."
--In My Hands
What to say about you, Ellen Bass? Easily a 3.5 more than a 3, another book I feel bad for placing squarely in the middle but can't bring myself to round upwards. If you are old, bisexual, maternal, and horny, or at least one of those things, this will have some great pearl of wisdom for you, gently deposited in your hands. However, not all the poems hit, and even ones with really great lines also have a few that just left me quietly whispering "what". Also like, when I said horny, I mean yes, this is horny, and while I agree with the general sentiment of missing old lovers, being in a lesbian relationship and saying you miss dick kinda hits wrong ngl. Then again that's... really just a personal thing. All poetry's kind of a personal thing? How do you do objective reviews again? Also at some point she compares genetic modification of food to the H-Bomb and?? That is a weird cross to die on??? If you want to read something beautiful and horny please step right up.
Feel free to peruse the mules, taking jewels as you choose to muse through.
"God is
the kicked child, the child
who rocks alone in the basement,
the one fucked so many times
she does not know her name, her mind
burning like a star."
--Bearing Witness
"I’d grabbed for the moon
and held it in my
hands, steaming, luminescent,
impossibly bright."
--In My Hands
What to say about you, Ellen Bass? Easily a 3.5 more than a 3, another book I feel bad for placing squarely in the middle but can't bring myself to round upwards. If you are old, bisexual, maternal, and horny, or at least one of those things, this will have some great pearl of wisdom for you, gently deposited in your hands. However, not all the poems hit, and even ones with really great lines also have a few that just left me quietly whispering "what". Also like, when I said horny, I mean yes, this is horny, and while I agree with the general sentiment of missing old lovers, being in a lesbian relationship and saying you miss dick kinda hits wrong ngl. Then again that's... really just a personal thing. All poetry's kind of a personal thing? How do you do objective reviews again? Also at some point she compares genetic modification of food to the H-Bomb and?? That is a weird cross to die on??? If you want to read something beautiful and horny please step right up.
Feel free to peruse the mules, taking jewels as you choose to muse through.
Read
October 10, 2021"And what if I spoke of despair- who doesn't
feel it? Who doesn't know the way it seizes,
leaving us limp, deafened by the slosh
of our own blood, rushing
through the narrow, personal
channels of grief. It's beauty
that brings it on, call it out from the wings
for one more song. Rain
pooled on a fallen oak leaf, reflecting
the pale cloudy sky, dark canopy
of foliage not yet fallen.
Or the red moon in September."
Definitely a book for restless souls like mine.
feel it? Who doesn't know the way it seizes,
leaving us limp, deafened by the slosh
of our own blood, rushing
through the narrow, personal
channels of grief. It's beauty
that brings it on, call it out from the wings
for one more song. Rain
pooled on a fallen oak leaf, reflecting
the pale cloudy sky, dark canopy
of foliage not yet fallen.
Or the red moon in September."
Definitely a book for restless souls like mine.
February 8, 2020
Unflinchingly honest, plain-spoken yet lyrical, poems rooted in the body and everyday life. Bass is one of my favorite writers and I'll be looking for more of her books. Recommended for poetry readers and humans in general.
January 4, 2023
Ellen Bass is a phenomenal poet with the rare gift of not only being able to empathize, but to beautifully communicate that empathy. Her line in The Thing Is (one of my favorite poems of all time) about holding life "like a face between your palms, a plain face" changed my life.
January 23, 2016
If you want to read a book of poems that will cause a catch in your breath, to make you nod your head in affirmation; THIS is one of those books.
Want to read
May 15, 2023TO LOVE LIFE TO LOVE IT EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE NO STOMACH FOR IT
January 2, 2021
I have to admit that I love just about everything Ellen Bass gifts to the world through her writing, but this collection is truly one of my favorites from her! The poems in this book touch on a breadth of human experiences from love, grief, sex, children, life, etc.
Here is one of my favorites-
The Thing Is
BY ELLEN BASS
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
Here is one of my favorites-
The Thing Is
BY ELLEN BASS
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
November 13, 2024
ellen bass' words have a way of sinking into the recesses of my heart. with gentleness, yes, but also with unmistakeable gravity (they're here to stay) (and so they will)
there Are goofy entries in this collection but the knockouts are KNOCKOUTS so idrgaf... 5 stars! me when i cried... my face = tear-stained from If There Is No God all the way through Acknowledgments parang baliw lang 🙏🏼🙏🏼
favorites:
- If There Is No God
- The Thing Is (one among a special assortment of poems posted on my wall, she's a presence to me)
- Basket of Figs
- Sleeping with You
- For My Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday
honorable mentions:
- The Moon (thinking about her, our beautiful moon, always the same moon, despite time, despite distance) (okay literally Sobrang Walang Ka Relate Relate but guys i've had The Waterboys' The Whole of the Moon looped since the beginning of this month i'm ijbol) (the song is literally Not about the moon i just started singing it while typing out the title of the poem LMAO...)
- Can't Get Over Her
- After Our Daughter's Wedding
- Insomnia
there Are goofy entries in this collection but the knockouts are KNOCKOUTS so idrgaf... 5 stars! me when i cried... my face = tear-stained from If There Is No God all the way through Acknowledgments parang baliw lang 🙏🏼🙏🏼
favorites:
- If There Is No God
- The Thing Is (one among a special assortment of poems posted on my wall, she's a presence to me)
- Basket of Figs
- Sleeping with You
- For My Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday
honorable mentions:
- The Moon (thinking about her, our beautiful moon, always the same moon, despite time, despite distance) (okay literally Sobrang Walang Ka Relate Relate but guys i've had The Waterboys' The Whole of the Moon looped since the beginning of this month i'm ijbol) (the song is literally Not about the moon i just started singing it while typing out the title of the poem LMAO...)
- Can't Get Over Her
- After Our Daughter's Wedding
- Insomnia
Read
September 1, 2025Driving south on highway one, along the crumbling edge of the continent, I see it, the moon, framed in the windshield like a small white shell
glued to the blue silk of the afternoon. Except it isn't.
It's the moon. All 1.62 × 1023 pounds of it, suspended,
with its mountains and maria, its craters, ridges and rilles.
"Isn't it amazing," I say to my lover and my son,
"to think the moon is really there and we can see it?"
She shrugs, cracking a salted sunflower seed.
Wires from a portable CD player pour Third Eye Blind into my son's perfectly shaped ears. So I am alone with my epiphany and the moon,
that I have come, just now, to realize is truly out there-
not a silver coin, a saucer of milk,
a creamy mound rising over the horizon of a tight bodice,
not an onion in the martini sky, not the surprised mouth of heaven, or the whole round face of God, this moon is the moon,
circling in its own private orbit of slight eccentricity, so close I can make out the smooth shadow of the Sea
of Rains
and trace the rough, bright peaks of the ranges.
glued to the blue silk of the afternoon. Except it isn't.
It's the moon. All 1.62 × 1023 pounds of it, suspended,
with its mountains and maria, its craters, ridges and rilles.
"Isn't it amazing," I say to my lover and my son,
"to think the moon is really there and we can see it?"
She shrugs, cracking a salted sunflower seed.
Wires from a portable CD player pour Third Eye Blind into my son's perfectly shaped ears. So I am alone with my epiphany and the moon,
that I have come, just now, to realize is truly out there-
not a silver coin, a saucer of milk,
a creamy mound rising over the horizon of a tight bodice,
not an onion in the martini sky, not the surprised mouth of heaven, or the whole round face of God, this moon is the moon,
circling in its own private orbit of slight eccentricity, so close I can make out the smooth shadow of the Sea
of Rains
and trace the rough, bright peaks of the ranges.
April 26, 2023
This book started out amazingly - it had me feeling like Ellen Bass was my new favorite poet. I still love her work, but there are some poems that really just didn’t sit right with me, contrasted with poems that were some of the best I’ve ever read, truly. Whiplash! I didn’t like the way aging, fatness, and (sometimes) gender were approached and written about in the book, but the overall messages and themes were good. Some of my favorites are “His Teeth,” “Sometimes, After Making Love,” “Basket of Figs,” & “Sleeping With You.” I mean, the language/metaphors are just impeccable. Still a book worth reading, but I’m left with genuine curiosity about what the heck was going through her mind while writing some of the poems, lol. That’s what stops me from giving 5 stars.
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December 29, 2024i suddenly had the urge to read the rest of the collection in one sitting (more like lying) right before going to bed, so i did just that buuuuuut i need to let my feelings cook a little more before i can rate it.
my half-baked judgment in the meantime: brilliant moments with poems built around them. not bad, but my expectations from "Basket of Figs" were too great, since that poem itself is THE moment. it made time stop, made my eyes and mouth water. as i feverishly typed in a close friends story a few months ago, "its like my appendix exploded and now theres an emptiness where that organ used to be and now i need to fill it up....... with poems"
my half-baked judgment in the meantime: brilliant moments with poems built around them. not bad, but my expectations from "Basket of Figs" were too great, since that poem itself is THE moment. it made time stop, made my eyes and mouth water. as i feverishly typed in a close friends story a few months ago, "its like my appendix exploded and now theres an emptiness where that organ used to be and now i need to fill it up....... with poems"
April 1, 2024
Ellen bass is an amazing poet. She has strong vivid metaphors which she often weaves them into a personal narrative. Not like some poets, that just create pretty imagery with words.
I couldn't rate this five stars because it was too crude. Not that I mind sex in poems, it's just the way she intertwined dirty language in with such beautiful imagery, it takes you away from the poem. One poem would have been great for the shock factor, but it was often used.
Overall though, I enjoyed my first collection by her and I'm looking forward to reading indigo next.
I couldn't rate this five stars because it was too crude. Not that I mind sex in poems, it's just the way she intertwined dirty language in with such beautiful imagery, it takes you away from the poem. One poem would have been great for the shock factor, but it was often used.
Overall though, I enjoyed my first collection by her and I'm looking forward to reading indigo next.
July 30, 2024
Poems I loved:
- Pay for It
- Phone Therapy
Poems I liked:
- Remodeling the Bathroom
- Happiness After Sorrow
- After Our Daughter’s Wedding
For the two poems that really spoke to me, it was absolutely worth reading this collection. I’m also just excited about poetry again as a medium and genre.
The rest of the poems I either didn’t care for, or strongly disliked. Some of the poems felt more obvious / less insightful. Others had strange sexual imagery that I didn’t enjoy.
- Pay for It
- Phone Therapy
Poems I liked:
- Remodeling the Bathroom
- Happiness After Sorrow
- After Our Daughter’s Wedding
For the two poems that really spoke to me, it was absolutely worth reading this collection. I’m also just excited about poetry again as a medium and genre.
The rest of the poems I either didn’t care for, or strongly disliked. Some of the poems felt more obvious / less insightful. Others had strange sexual imagery that I didn’t enjoy.
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