Gold color
Barbara Crookers books are Radiance which won the 2005 Word Press First Book competition and was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize Line Dance Word Press 2008 which won the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence and More C R Press 2010 Barbara Crooker s books are Radiance which won the 2005 Word Press First Book competition and was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize Line Dance Word Press 2008 which won the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence and More C R Press 2010 site_link In her most recent book Gold Barbara Crooker argues with Robert Frost True nature s first green is gold and true nothing gold can stay but Crooker sees that nature s last green is also gold In these intense well crafted poems gold is tenor and vehicle as Crooker examines the death of her mother Isabelle the death of friends and her own softening body. Kindle goldman sachs Read Literary Mama s full review here 1620329409 The epigraph page quote Nothing gold can stay Robert Frost sets the tone of Gold The fifty five poems in the collection carry on the theme of that which is beautiful valuable and precious though transient There are poems about aging nature and ekphrastic poems that talk back to works of art Some of the most poignant are Crooker s poems about her mother We follow her mother s illness beginning with On the Day of her Diagnosis when the small pearl was cancer a word that hissed in the ear like fat in a pan p 14 We sit with Crooker the caregiver in poems like Peeps where her mother refuses to eat sensible food I m not eating this stuff Where s my Peeps p 24 Finally we grieve oh we grieve in a multitude of laments and elegies Ashes Mother Grief Today and Crooker s poems are accessible and warm with a come hither tone that embraces the reader and made this reader at least feel understood having lost my own mother a few years ago Crooker is a keen observer of nature too noting its colors with an artist s eye and vocabulary Again and again gold glints from these pieces from the goldenrod in the book s title poem Gold and the color of money in The Stock Market Loses Fluidity to the leaf gold of nature and all the golden foods we re served honey peanut butter fudge golden fat glistening on top of soup There is also lots of complementary blue mostly from sky and water It s a combination that brings an aliveness and electric sizzle to the collection. Gold kindle unlimited Crooker is an expert on her own life and writes about the most ordinary things with skill imagination and aural beauty I will leave you with one enticing bit to showcase her deftness with language and metaphor The seasons change peel off their coats Grief comes and goes with its shaker of salt pours over me without warning Puts items in my grocery cart that only she would eat from La neige et l hiver p 27 This review was first published in FellowScript February 2014 1620329409 A friend gave me this book and I ve been reading and savoring it slowly these past months It is about grief and observations in varying places where memories arise Barbara Crooker wrote this to respond to the long journey of her mother s illness and eventual death There is a special bond like no other between a mother and daughter and the poems show that bond in a myriad of ways the response to places to memories there to acts as small as kindling a fire together In still another poem she writes of a journey where the Book of Life is fastened shut and there are no pages left to read by their own burning I love Barbara Crooker s poetry and this was a special book to me 1620329409 So many beautiful poems in this book about the burning fire of Autumn and end of life and the heaviness of grief after great loss Lone after amazing line mesmerized me I am so grateful to have read this book 1620329409 Beautiful heartbreaking poetry about art and the death of the author s mother I sent a copy to my daughter in law who is an artist Her mother died recently and she expressed how much she loved this cathartic book 1620329409
Barbara Crooker s new book Gold focuses on one of the most profoundly life altering experiences possible losing one s mother This collection is an elegy not just to the speaker s mother but to a lost Eden that cannot be reclaimed Beginning with a series of lyrics set in autumn the poems become narrative recounting the long illness of Crooker s mother her death and the profound journey along the shores of grief Throughout Crooker is aware of the complexity and strength of the mother daughter relationship and the chasm that this loss opens The book also includes other themes poems about aging and the body the loss of friends the difficulties and joys in a long term marriage and always the subtle ways faith influences the way Crooker experiences life Her work has great scope spanning the globe from rural Pennsylvania to Ireland and reaching not just within herself but also outside of herself to ekphrastic poems on the paintings of Gorky Manet Matisse and others This is the book of a mature writer one who demonstrates an awareness of our own impermanence our brokenness and one who knows that if our parents go before us we will have to learn to live with loss In this book we see the redemptive power of poetry itself to heal and to console Gold Poiema Poetry.
