Untamed Arabesque: Poems
by Marianne Peel
48 Poems ~ 11 Color Illustrations ~ 89 pages
Price: $20.00 + $4.00 shipping
Publisher: Laverne Zabielski and Act of Power Press
ISBN #: 979-8-31-986193-1
To Order: https://lavernezabielski.com/actofpowerpress
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
Let’s begin with a definition. According to the best dictionaries, Arabesque means:
An ornament or style that employs flower, foliage, or fruit and sometimes animal and figural outlines to produce an intricate pattern of interlaced lines.
This stunning collection caught me by the nape of neck and drew me in from the start. With interesting titles such as “Po’ Monkey’s Juke Joint: Merigold, Mississippi,” “Happy Hour at Stoney’s Honky Tonk,” “Invitation to a Dead Man,” and many others, this poet Had me from hello. “Love Letter to My Beloved,” which is an ode to the incomparable Walt Whiteman, sets an irresistible tone. About Whiteman, Peel imagines:
I invoke the temporary, lure you
into the benediction
of the sea and sand and sky.
With the salty sea,
I anoint our foreheads,
the slope of our shoulders,
the soft slide of our necks,
the vibrations emanating from our hips.
Keeping in mind our definition that Arabesque features interlacing patterns, ornaments if you will, experiences of the spirit, often as serendipitous and untranslatable as Whitman himself, this excerpt is an hors d’oeuvre that previews the banquet.
Stylistically, Marianne Peel writes in a variety of line lengths. I sense a penchant for long narrative lines, perhaps channeling Whitman. Never tedious, she features couplets, quatrains, stanzas of varied lengths, and excellent end-line decisions. These features, in concert with unforced dictional freedom, delighted me throughout the work. Two excerpts follow:
Mother and Child, 1967
Mama grabbed my hand and tugged me
to autumn picnics. Went up to the tar roof of our apartment
where hugging chimneys sputtered, the rooftop garden a tangle
of chokeberries and shriveling clematis vines.
Mama would lay down the blanket made of Papa’s old neckties.
She’d tell me stories of each tie. The ones he wore to Sunday service.
Called them his Sacred Ties. Always a monogrammed handkerchief
in his lapel pocket. His compassion socks matched his tie.
I appreciate Peel’s use of enjambment here. She needs the reader to catch the experiential flow of hugging chimneys … that sputter. The roof is sealed with tar … tar that I can smell because of enjambed lines that picture mother and child mingling together.
A Brief History of My Lips
I leave behind
breadcrumbs of places my lips
have been:
in the chant and scat
over the hinges and speedbumps
of a flautist’s chromatic scale;
behind that pulsating space
just below my beloved’s left earlobe;
on the malleable spot
still throbbing
on a newborn Kate’s baby scalp;
on the starched shirt collar
tepid blue
buttoned down
and fastidious;
on Aunt Mary’s hairnet
saturated with Aqua Net,
a baker’s dozen of bobby pins
contorted into pincurls;
on Uncle Harry’s forehead
as he lay buttoned-up and sober,
the Greek Orthodox incense infusing
the silk folds of his casket.
In this poem, Peel shows an affinity for including interesting details as well as internal rhyming which add an element of musicality to the poem. I heard long “a” sounds: places, scales, spaces, Kate. I liked the more subdued short “a” of chant and scant. I related to the cryptic “starched shirt collar / tepid blue / buttoned down / and fastidious.”
The collection is peppered with color and black/white illustrations which fit in nicely juxtaposed on facing pages. These enhance the whole. “Drunk on Bourbon and Cicadas,” is illustrated by a cicada on a summer branch. The companion poem describes the difference between the fortunes of cicadas compared to the ant:
Aesop reminds us that the cicada spends the summer singing,
while his counterpart, the ant, stockpiles food in a fury of labor.
Come bitterness of winter, the ant feasts on her stores.
The cicada has only memory of song to devour.
What a treasure! I’ve never thought about this “quirk” of nature. Marianne Peel has, and now I’m thinking about a life comparison … which is better? Singing one’s way through summer or preparing for winter?
A reviewer has only so many words available to make his point. I need more words to cover all the good things Untamed Arabesque has to offer. However, I appeal to Marianne’s preface as fitting closure and tribute to this remarkable volume:
For Uncle Harry, who made every encounter with Him magical. He showed me how to navigate the soft shoe, almost floating above the floor with his gentle rhythm, his
cotton-candy promises, his year to love and be loved.
|
