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Reviewed by Kristin Johnson, founder of
Warrior Poets
"What relationship is more complex or more elemental
than the mother-child bond? Abraham Lincoln said, 'All that I am or
hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.' Toni Morrison wrote, 'Grown
don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get
bigger, older, but grown?What's that suppose to mean? In my heart
it don't mean a thing.'
Both of those quotes, as well as one by Honore de Balzac at the
beginning of SHE WORE EMERALD THEN, perfectly describe this
collection of poems by Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena
Ball---poetry that catches at your soul. Both of them reprise their
poems from Ball's QUARK SOUP, Howard-Johnson's TRACINGS, and their
joint collection, CHERISHED PULSE. Fans of CHERISHED PULSE will be
pleased to learn that the poets continue to write poems that don't
sound either like banal Hallmark cards or the
bitter-at-dysfunctional-family jeremiads that habitually torture MFA
writing workshop participants.
That would be perfect. Or you
could just have the text:
The two poets complement each other (with words accompanied by
stunning photography by May Lattanzio). The opus covers both the
grand sweep of the birth of all universal life and the private
universe populated by only an adult daughter watching her mother
struggle to eat dinner and remembering how her mother washed her
one slip. While Ball explores the cosmic continuum and traces us all
back to the mother spark that set the stars burning, Howard-Johnson
concentrates her portraiture on the deeply personal. But Ball also
talks about the oxytocin haze of giving birth and her
mother vomiting from cancer drugs. To quote the last poem in the
collection, 'Hallmark Couldn't Possibly Get This Right.' When you
read about the tough love of the universe or Ball's sienna childhood
photograph or Howard-Johnson's mother forgetting her name, you want
to cry and hug your mother (and your children, if you have them),
because they capture the eternal tug of war between joy and sorrow
in the mother-child bond."
~ Kristin Johnson, poet, author, screenwriter and founder of the
Poet Warrior Project.
This fun word art
made with a digital application is created by
www.wordle.net
This poem is from Carolyn's irreverent poem about Hallmark cards.
See the tip below for ideas of how you might use this tool.
~~~
Review for
She Wore
Emerald Then
Reflections on Mothers and Motherhood
Reviewed by Helena Harper
This is a
collection of poetry that movingly illustrates many aspects of
motherhood and, if you are a poetry lover, there is much that
you will find appealing and thought-provoking. In the first half
of the book, the poems by Magdalena Ball have a cosmic quality
to them and some wonderful imagery. In the poem 'Coil of Life',
for example, giving birth is described as the 'Big Bang' and in
'Assault by a Black Hole', the reader is taken on a journey from
the sublime to the commonplace and you can't help but smile:
A powerful jet from a black hole
is blasting nearby galaxy 3C321
with outrageous galactic violence
x-rays, gamma rays
particles traveling the speed of light
tearing ozone layers
destroying alien life forms
and breeding new star systems
a million primordial sons
in the lethal pummelling.
Talk about tough love.
In the face of that million year
assault
(a fraction of the system’s lifetime)
I suppose I have no right
to complain
about one smart, sharp smack
sent my way
to facilitate a few manners.
Carolyn
Howard-Johnson's poems have, by contrast, a homely down-to-earthness
which also appeals. I loved her description of dandelion petals
in the poem 'Dandelions in Autumn':
Yellow petals, pollen-soft
like monarchs' wings.
Little lions' manes
like illustrations in childrens'
books, not like roaring
Serengeti cats
or the MGM logo lion, harmless
these. I pick them, bunch them,
hold them under Mama's chin
to see if they light her throat
yellow, and if they do, delight!
In the poem
'Musing Over a New Calendar', the author reflects on the passage
of time - how there is still so much she wants to do and see,
yet her ageing mother is 'alone, rejecting all but her home'. I
felt the author's pain in these lines as I did in the poem
'Mother and Daughter' where she describes her job of 'mothering
again', but this time it is not her children who need her help
but her own elderly mother:
...I take over seatbelt
duties, step ahead of her then stop,
reluctant for her to know she's slow.
We all forget names,
I say as numb
moves from hand to heart
because it is my name she has forgotten.
Yet, despite
such painful memories and associations, perhaps the strongest is
the 'eternal warmth' of our mother's bed – as Ms. Ball puts it –
'a shared space/ free from the ticking illusion/ of time, motion
and change./ Here, where you are always welcome/ nothing
matters/ except this peace/ this place/ containing every
possible now.'
~
Helena Harper, poet and author of "It's a Teacher's Life...!"
Read Willie Elliott's review of
She Wore Emerald Then for MyShelf:
http://www.myshelf.com/miscellaneous/09/sheworeemeraldthen.htm
Read a review from DeSilva News Editor Jozette Aaron at
http://jozette.webs.com/bookreviews.htm.
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By Magdalena Ball
and Carolyn Howard-Johnson 
