Poet Tom Andrews and a Farewell to Marilyn French

I'm introducing you to the poet, Tom Andrews, today. I love his poetry. In this second wise and passionate book, "The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle", Tom Andrews explores illness as a major theme, avoiding sentimentality without being merely confessional. He advances his considerable talent with great strength and forcefulness. The poems are buoyant with humor and mindful of larger mysteries even as they investigate very personal issues. There is an urgency that is compelling; the work is immersed in the private grief of the speaker without excluding the reader. There is real and hard-won wisdom and intelligence in the poems, offering genuine surprises and delight; their attractive humility is not a pose..."


AT BURT LAKE

By Tom Andrews

To disappear into the right words
and to be their meanings...

October dusk.
Pink scraps of clouds, a plum-colored sky.
The sycamore tree spills a few leaves.
The cold focuses like a lens...

Now night falls, its hair
caught in the lake's eye.
Such clarity of things. Already
I've said too much...

Lord,
language must happen to you
the way this black pane of water,
chipped and blistered with stars,
happens to me.

From: "The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle"





I learned late last week that one of my favorite authors from the 1970's died: Marilyn French. Her book, "The Women's Room" was life changing for me when I read it at the tender age of 23. I'd never before read a novel by a woman which so eloquently described the life of a suburban housewife of the 50's and her friends and their journey to Feminism. If you haven't read this book, then do yourself a favor and find it. It was a ground-breaking book in it's day and is still relevant today.