Talking with Stanley Kunitz : Book Review

“TALKING WITH STANLEY KUNITZ,”

by JUANITA TORRENCE-THOMPSON

66 pages

Torderwarz Publishing Company

REVIEWER: DOMINICK ARBOLAY

JUANITA TORRENCE-THOMPSON’S 7^th book, Talking With Stanley Kunitz, starts a theme of the juxtaposition of everyday life with the extraordinary. An African American girl meeting actor Orson Wells on a London street in “Teenager in London’s West End” and poet, Stanley Kunitz in New York. A Brazilian hack in New York’s encounter with a movie star in “Driving Robert DeNiro” (the irony of Taxi Driver, which made DeNiro a major star, and the Brazilian cab driver, coincidentally and subtley harks back to DeNiro’s cab driver character in the movie which Torrence-Thompson acted in). Poems such as the skillful sestina form “Falling in Love With Little Neck Bay” explode with color and images. “It is a honeymoon for my eyes” indeed.

Several issues are brewing including civil rights, urban and racial issues, slavery and its legacies and music. There are the memorable poetic jaunts through New England, such as a biker unexpectedly holding a door for an elderly African American lady as his bemused pack looks on in “Bikers Enroute.”

BIKERS ENROUTE

The old man and woman

poked along the New England Thruway

in their five-year old Mercury

stopping now and then to photograph

a feast of colors gripping the trees

and inhabiting distant mountains

First stop in Guilford, Vermont

bore a bevy of tough-looking, ruddy-skinned bikers

dressed sky to ground in black leather

like they stepped out of Marlon Brando’s

“The Wild One,” keen like a Sunday Prance in the Park

They charged through swinging doors

wearing black skull caps. One tall,

muscular biker with probing  blue eyes

and a skull tattoo hung on his arm

held the door open for the plump old woman

His smirk belied it was a happenstance

— an unintentional gesture —

as he imitated her walk to his buddies

Their throaty laughs swirled through the air

“Front of the Bus With Rosa Parks” is a powerful demand for equality and justice, which is another occurring theme. The South African theme poems and “Knowing” – the stand-out piece — set in Birmingham, Alabama, deal with remembering injustices that tie in with Rosa Parks.  Sometimes justice comes in subtler tones such as an ailing BB King still able to perform his magic on his guitar, or a woman asking for a divorce in “Checkmate.”

KNOWING

Knowing she dabbled in art,

Creating sculptured delights

That repleted her soul like

An immovable feast.

Knowing she flew South

To his funeral – A dear friend –

Couldn’t miss it.

Knowing she saw his and her friends

There like Old Home Week

— Alabama college days re-blossomed.

Knowing she attended a fish fry

At his widow’s mansion. What an eye opener!

She loved her twin girls,

Workaholic husband, Ralph, but

Had she made the right choices?

Should she have moved South

To wallow in luxury?

Knowing she traveled to Birmingham now

Photographed a famous church

Where black children were murdered on 16^th Street

Knowing she wandered the streets

With her friend where Birmingham hoses

Had attacked black protesters

Streets that looked quite innocent now

Knowing she bought fruit

At Birmingham Farmer’s Market

Paid the young white clerk

Who smiled, looked into her mahogany face

And said, “Thank you for your patronage, ma’m,

Come again.”  Knowing she was surprised,

But returned a smile as, “You’re welcome.”

Flew from her lips.

Knowing she sauntered out of that Birmingham

Market feeling at peace with herself

And knowing and knowing and knowing…

Then there are the Vermont poems which display another side of Torrence-Thompson’s view of the world. We have the playfulness of “Bennington Gas Station,” the unexpected discovery in “Dog Walking Man,” and the quiet, imaginative poem, “Echoes From the Mountain Top.” Here is an excerpt:

ECHOES FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP

Suddenly I fall back in time

to horse-drawn carriages

imagine my mother’s tender smile,

loving voice echo my name calling

from the mountain peak

I lift my hand into the air

almost touching the amber sky

Juanita Torrence-Thompson has painted a magnificent treasury of poems people can relate to and learn from without being preachy. “Talking With Stanley Kunitz” will put a smile on your face or elicit a teardrop, but you will feel compelled to keep reading. As usual, Torrence-Thompson delivers.

Friday Morning Dining

 

She’s bent low, arms thrashing, all elbows and twisting shoulders

So as not to give the others a chance you see
So as not to lose out nor loosen her grip on yesterday’s meals,
Today’s tied-tight, black plastic bags.
Her generous bosom, once a nourisher of many now heaves
And sways this way and that against her rise and fall
Into and out of the throwaway worlds of those more fortunate than she,
Or removed in any case.
Upon grey, Friday morning wheelies now she sweats and curses
Old positions taken from her years before
Grappling with the current big news stories, “street blankets”
Hide her road food, but don’t keep it warm.

My wish

I wish , the Moon can hear me …!!

To tell him my stories .. ~

I wish , the sea can understood my words…!!

to tell him about my dreams … ~

… … …

I wish ,the rain eases my sadness…!!

to sit under it to remove my pains … ~

What good , if there is nothing of my words can be realized … ~!!

Experience in Life

They do not die and you alive

Do not cry in front of a man then wait for kindness

Do not put your heart on someone’ hands and wait for mercy

Don’t give your ear to someone and wait for honesty

Don’t trust ANYONE and wait loyalty.

Do not stand and wait who pushes you.

Do not think, and wait who works for you …

Do not despair and wait someone sows hope inside you …

DON’T LOVE AND WAIT PAYMENT

 

Love is free , but expensive, precious.

Don’t give FULL TRUST on life, because life is all variable …

Don’t live only on hope …

Because Hope is hair easy to cut..

Do not stand crossing hands and wait for the result …

Feel life with your strength

 

With your self confidence …

With pulse of your heart …

fight on life , even you are alone …

And after all that , even you fail. . .

YOU MUST SMILE

Because when failed person smiles , the victor loose the thrill of victory

From there I left

 

I quit leaving behind many beautiful memories

with nice memory

Fates were slaughtering my dreams

and send Inconsistencies into INSIDE me

Conflicts appear within me ..i live with her

fates forced me to leave

I left from there taking memories of love

memories of childhood and the Beautiful place

I left .. but my dreams do not leave with me

There !! I am still embracing the past

Smiles …. play ……..

Everything happens looks as just now is made in my heart

I tried to forget that … to forget the LEFT

with time more and more groans are growing

tears and voice of your leaving were growing up

Longings attract me to that

place

Conversations

Beautiful place

Oh…I am still waiting for returning to that place

I Love

I know that the way to the impossible is very long

I love you ………..

I know that time of missing you is over

And sweet words were died, what can I say !!

Nothing to say ..Nothing

I love you too much

I know that I live in a place and you in another

between me and you wind, cloud and lightning, thunder, snow and fire

I know, reaching to your eyes is just conceit

I know ,reaching to your lips is a suicide

I feel very happy when i tear myself for you .. my sweet

If they make me choose, I will choose you again

I know, I am sailing at your eye’s sea without attention

Leaving my wisdom behind me running toward my madness

Refusing to out from your love’s fire

What I do if I out from your love..!!

It is not the matter if I out dead ..

I asked you :

Don’t leave me; I am NOTHING without you in my life

I love with four languages:

I love You

Je t’aime

tie quiro

I am the crazy lover

Life

Life is a candle ,its wick is love and light is hope

The truth is a pearl which needs a smart diver

Unity is not to sit alone, but to lose your lover

Happiness is sadness without lips

Failure is rocks in the aroma of reality

Hatred is flame burning in the heart of envious change it to ashes

Impossible is a word exists in a fools world

Escape

My fingers have slipped into her soft sepals, creeping along her petals like ladyfingers playing on a pure piano. I have pulled her leafy dress down, slowly, like an atheist turning the pages of a sacred book. I have rested gently beside her like a boy playing in Christmas snow, waiting for some holy, miraculous light. I have respected her, my flower! My hands have played the guitar on her ribs like a miner who has discovered a golden wall in a faraway forest. I’ve then disappeared from her thirsty eyes, like a happy crab walking along a vast and desert beach during sunset lest she would stick to my body like the tentacles of an octopus holding onto a wild boat sweeping over a lake containing the pieces of a broken religion.

Grandmother’s Maidenhair Ferns

Wet, evergreen hair hanging above the mossy rocks and leaning on the muddy wall, like a fountain that rolls down the green hills of unknown countries, I remember, you were my grandmother’s care.   Your wet, ever green hair still eerily exudes those swords of golden fire, burning brighter than the sun on a midsummer day, despite the absence of the one who loved you most.   I used to and still imagine grandmother, with you, feisty maidenhair ferns sitting on her head. Gosh! Grandmother in such modern jeans, with green hair spread à la Shakira!   Be it with her amazingly immortal guitar, with green hair “Pee-ka-booing” like a new rockstar, or in a cool restaurant with cascading hair, be it in a top or solemn dress with her hair flattened   like an obedient girl, grandmother had a beauty that belonged only to the wild wind. The imaginary combo of you two is a comedy yet to be surpassed by any other memory.   There’s a romantic whisper in your chemistry too. At least, I can sometimes giggle after grandmother’s death due to you wet, evergreen maidenhair ferns.

Raped World

Crumpled flowers             ruffled bed   Shattered flowers             scattered dreams   Wars yet to be won             bliss yet to be recovered   Strong smell of false promises             one rose bleeding in a corner   Justice killed             the wind ruffling the red curtains   Deflated world maps lying on the crumpled flowers, on the ruffled bed.   The knife has slowly slipped from god’s hand. It has fallen and with the strokes of light the blade has gathered life in my hand, enough to make me share death with her.