Her Dress Does a Flip
by Lynn Fitzgerald
27 poems ~ 55 pages
Price: $15.00
Publisher: Dancing Girl Press
To Order: https://dulcetshop.myshopify.com/products/of-bourbon-and-kids-lynn-fitzgerald
or email:
dancinggirlpress@yahoo.com or
from the author: fitzgeraldlynnc@aol.com
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
A Word About the Cover
I was instantly intrigued by Lynn Fitzgerald’s choice of a cover image for Her Dress Does a Flip. For this reviewer, the image suggested fun, craziness, mystery, and a kind of wily deception. I noted that the legs projecting from the carriage wear high heels. Right then I knew I was in for the buggy ride of my life! And I was right. I would buy this book simply for its entertainment value. But this collection is so much more. Her Dress Does a Flip seeks to penetrate to the core of what it means to be human. I must admit that my life-carriage often resembles Fitzgerald’s artistic life-metaphor.
A Word about Structure
The work is not divided into sections or parts. Its poems appear one after the other suggesting a cathartic journey within the poet’s life. It is as if Fitzgerald has determined to get everything said and gives her muse permission to become a fountainhead of poetic expression … expressions that MUST be expelled for the last time.
In support of the above observation I am struck by Fitzgerald’s unconventional sonnet, “Sine Qua Non,” which I reproduce in full here:
The essential element we look for, what we lack
From our genes or chemistry, culture, religion.
This gap we seek to fill or at the very least to conceal
Lest we be thought of as lacking some primordial
Quality. The definition around which all else spins,
Creating an orbit, the unbroken circle we inhabit.
A circle we walk endlessly in until we
Come face to face with that one being
Who emanates everything we have missed
And we feel our orbit stretched into an angular
Geometry, some shape not our own, a shape
We wished to be. In resignation we settle
For that which is offered: a subtle, explosive gift
For which we have no words.
This poem seeks clarity about that which is vital for life. What will suffice? What is that one thing one cannot do without that defines a “good life?” Throughout the collection Fitzgerald is conversing with herself. Examining life here, evaluating her experiences there, enjoying the journey and not especially concerned with arriving at a destination. In the collection’s lead poem “il-logic” the poet creates an anomaly about love:
He can only imagine the world
She walks or wears her hair in
Love is a deprivation of sorts
Some logic lost, an interruption of integrity.
She can only imagine the world
He walks and wears his glasses in
Or how he doesn’t look at life but does.
Yet she knows how his hands feel
How definite the grasp
And this holds fast the dream,
The arm reaches with the fingers for the pen
The wrist supports the words.
Is this a poem or is it life?
The man stretches his dark coat across
His shoulders, walks through the doorway
Into his world and the woman steps
Inside her life, silent as a leaf falling to the ground.
Excursions into Life with Lynn Fitzgerald
With the above poems serving as foundation, Fitzgerald’s journey is just beginning. “How My Parents Meet,” is written in present tense as if she is watching what they do, noticing special things that drew them close. These paint a picture of love:
He remembers the color of her dress, the careless elegance,
of her step. She recalls the knot in his tie,
how she straightened it as he held her body to his–
he is her land. She steps ashore, the briny smell familiar,
but this has never happened before.
This lovely oracle must have brought joy, as the words tumbled forth as from the muses’ fountainhead. The poet stows her dream in her treasure chest of memories.
As I worked through the collection I counted six poems which were “wildly” delightful with indentations. These are by design suggesting that this poet will not be confined or defined by convention. Poems such as “Paradise of Myself,” “Scotch on the Rocks,” “Pas de Deux,” and “Les Crudités,” are so revealing, so fresh, as to defy containment in traditional structures. I spent extra time with these poems and was richly rewarded.
With that said, Professor Fitzgerald (City Colleges of Chicago) is a seasoned practitioner of her craft. Her stanza productions feature couplets, tercets, quatrains, unique stanzaic mixtures, and long and short line combinations. Additionally, I was delighted when I encountered traditional forms such as villanelle, rondeau, and cento. Taken together, these round out a superior display of poetry acumen.
“Ordinary” is a poem I kept returning to. This poem profoundly speaks to the inner core of Lynn Fitzgerald. At the end of the day, the best poets elevate what most people miss and find Sine Qua Non:
I know I’ve left friends and missed each one
I’ve listened to a flock of geese as they have taken flight
in search of sunlight and warm sand
and I have considered what has been missed,
what I have not said, although felt, and why
this is so. How I must live with the thoughts of loss,
profound loss, while the trees chant remembrances
and I listen to the wind. I feel a hand rest on my shoulder,
hear someone calling me and then calling in the children from play
and someone else is arriving at the door, the buzzer blaring–
and here, while I contemplate loss
is the extravagance of ordinary life.
And this is precisely why Her Dress Does a Flip belongs on your library shelf.
|
