|
Two Emilys
by Andrea Potos
30 Poems ~ 47 pages
Price: $17.00 ~ Paperback
Format: 6 x 9 ~ Perfect Bound
Publisher: Kelsay Books
ISBN: 978-1-63980-687-4
To Order: Amazon.com
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
Among the yet-to-be-fulfilled items on my bucket list is a visit to Emily Dickinson’s (1830-1886) homestead in Amherst, MA. This mysterious genius has fascinated me for decades. On the other hand, I know little about Dickinson’s counterpart, British poet Emily Brontë (1818-1848). Reading Two Emily’s, Andrea Potos’s latest collection, has been both an education as well as an inspiration. My goal in this review is two-fold: (1) to compare two incomparable poets; and (2) to highlight Andrea’s facility to bring the two Emily’s back to life on the poetic page.
Andrea dedicates her collection:
For all the Women poets.
This is appropriate to history. Dickinson published a mere handful of poems, less than ten. Brontë published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. Both women labored within an atmosphere adverse to promoting women in the arts.
The book is designed to point and counterpoint each Emily. That is, the poems appear on facing pages as if the three poets are conversing. It is as if Potos knows each Emily well enough to write for both. Potos’s own style merges out of intimate discourse with her subjects.
“Speaking of Poetry,” serves as an umbrella poem:
She said there’s a clarity in each word,
like the chandelier
that hung in your dining room as a child—
stars of blue-white and yellow-gold,
even purple and magenta could be found
sparking on all the walls;
each piece of the chandelier—
a teardrop whole and dipped in light—
you could see your whole life through it.
Most of the poems are brief; they fit on one page and are designed to channel each Emily as stylistically appropriate. Two examples:
A Stone from Emily Brontë
On the high Yorkshire moor
I found it, dark spotted blue and blazed
with stars and twilight.
One wind-lashed mile away
from her parsonage home,
I bent down to keep it—
dreamed her gaze my own.
Answering poem:
Upon Waking
after ED
I’ll tell you how the day began—
one dream strand at a time—
pictures sifted in gold-burgundy
the messages, lie keys, were lost
If I listen carefully, using my imagination, I am close to all three poets in my spirit. These brief poems invite me into their minds, into their lives.
I do not know if Andrea has visited the Brontë home in England but two poems, “Walking the Moor in Spring,” and “Brontëan Morning,” make me wonder . . . both poems invite readers to share in picturesque countryside walks “alongside tall, bent grasses and gorse, / browned by heather and stones and crags.” We hear “The loudest crows / cawing over the tops of the oaks / call me to autumn already / and though my back is the window, … I feel the gorse / grazing my ankles as I go.”
I also appreciate the historical perspective offered about each poet. In an age of presumed religiosity, Dickinson was not always in tune with conventional thinking as demonstrated by “Emily Dickinson Stays Home When Ralph Waldo Emerson Visits Her Brother’s House:
Let there be no argument
from the grass between
my brother’s house and mine.
No need to touch flesh—
like the Word, he must glow.
Hadn’t we met in that place
where Dream is born—
I remember—Soul sparks
erupted—I felt
my own ignite—
in my ear—the Mountains straight reply.
“To Emily Brontë” is Andrea’s letter to Brontë reimagining her eleven-year-old self “sunk in the red velveteen / chair and the Fox Bay Theater.” There she is absorbed by scenes from Wuthering Hights. Scenes depicting Yorkshire moors, Heathcliff’s sea-green eyes, pathos of love and loss that captured the poetry protégé’s blooming imagination.
Other titles not to overlook include, “To the College Girl Who Sold The Life of Emily Dickinson,” “A Reading in Emily’s House,” “The Last Unread Poems of Charlotte Brontë, March 2022,” and “When Any Word Came Near Emily Dickinson’s Name.” These poems and more (indeed every poem makes the list) but space is limited.
I close with “Some Advice from Emily,” to which the other Emily would happily signature as worthy advice:
Keep words
brief, bound-tight
think of that quick-startle—
fingertip on stovetop—
that one breath, throat-caught
seconds before the reveal.
Ah yes, that “quick-startle,” is a phrase aptly suited to Andrea Potos’s stellar collection. No poem disappointed this reviewer … five stars + for this book, underpriced at a mere $17.00.
|
