Escapement
by Rebecca G. Biber
35 Poems ~ 88 pages
Price: $18.00
Publisher: NFSPS Press
ISBN: 979-8-9929766-1-8
To Order: rebeccagbiberpoet.com
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
Escapement by Rebecca G. Biber was awarded the prestigious 2025 Barbara Stevens Poetry Book Award by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. The award was officially conferred on Ms. Biber during the Federation’s annual convention held at Overland Park, Kansas, in July of 2026. Having attended that event, this reviewer was privileged to hear the poet read selections from her award-winning collection. As Nigerian American poet, Chris Abani writes in his endorsement of Biber’s work, “With persuasive and elegant lines these poems unfold, at once experimental and yet grounded in the familiar, flowing with a captivating and memorable lyricism, into an accomplished, revelatory, and magnificent collection.”
Not only is Rebecca Biber a gifted poet, but she is also a music educator and collaborative pianist. These musical skills inform her poetry. Indeed, the controlling theme of Escapement is music. One might say that for Biber, poetry, education and collaboration form a rope consisting of three strands. I’m reminded of a passage from the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes:
“A cord of three strands is not quickly broken,” Chapter 4,verse 12c.
Like the timeless verse, Biber’s poetry is strong. Its strands form a cord informed by wisdom gained through suffering, which leads to compassion for the human condition. These three form a golden thread that is traceable throughout her work.
Stylistically, Biber is full of surprises. Writing in narrative free verse, her lines are longer than most poets I have reviewed. Running anywhere from fifteen to twenty syllables … sometimes more, her diction is so alive, so full of creative devices that line length was never a problem in terms of my eye following from one line to the next. She writes competently in couplets, tercets, quatrains, solids, and long narrative paragraphs. One thing that bothered me at first was Biber’s use of “wild” indentations. Her lines are “all over the page”! As I read these poems, I came to understand that the poet’s lines resembled her music background. It is as if she is all over the keyboard as a poetic technique. This is something I began to sense or feel. Most importantly, Biber writes as if she is present to me, easy, natural … nothing forced or contrived.
Biber’s “Prelude” sets an informative tone:
Got betrothed to the piano. I was too young to know
better and too old to be good. By the time Lyudmila reached
the end of All the Pretty Horses, the other children were asleep
and I was sitting up tall and starry eyed. I got to go with my dad to
the piano store and try my little homemade medley of Mary Had and
Frère. Each hand knew how to do its job before my first teacher gave
me stickers and erasers shaped like books. Before I knew which
numbers were which fingers, before they slid unthinking into
E-flat, effortless such as I’d remember and wish
For my whole life after. That what was
hard turned automatic. That any song
could start on any key, change and
transposition would be acceptable
as long as I wound up home.
If you’re thinking child prodigy you’re on track with me. Piano is as natural as breathing in and breathing out for Rebecca Biber.
In keeping with my three strands theme noted above, Escapement features three divisions which, though thematically separate, are interwoven into a polythematic structure. Those divisions are: I. Performance Season (Poems related to interactions with her students and to personal revelations that compose the music of her life.) II. Because Blood (Poems about her Polish-Jewish heritage and the sufferings that define her life and inform both her music and her poetry.) III. Survival Measures (Poems which expand on her heritage but portray that heritage within the fullness of time.)
The poem “What Wrecks Houses,” (Section III) for me, functions as a kind of summary of Biber’s mind:
Still surprised by snow and ice despite
being born a Michigander. Hemmed in
with my own mishegoss, nowhere to go.
Maybe enough cold wind can mend the mind,
making me look past the sleety glass.
I sit in the day-long storm as I before
a date or a new student, chest open,
what questions? I wait to feel my absent
strength again, as though resilience
were a process of liquid seeping in.
How is it that what wrecks houses builds us?
I’m taut for a message that might not come.
I don’t want life to change, I don’t want
the way it is, meanwhile the weather says
play, the weather says, ask anything.
Biber’s title poem Escapement is a masterpiece that captures the whole of Biber’s poetic thrust. Structured as a symphony, the poem features Anacrusis (or an upbeat that prepares the listener for that which follows); Propulsion (the sense of forward momentum); Release (gradual easing of tension leading to denouement); and finally, Morendo, (closure or darkening of stage lights.)
Though Biber introduces “Escapement” with the epigraph: after a lecture on piano construction, by Robert Grijalva … trust me … Biber may be writing about construction but she is thinking about life. As I entered the essence of this poem, I detected a beautiful blend of poet, piano, and purpose. Here, there is no distinction between poet and art … “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
|
