Book of the Week

New & Selected: Poetry of Laurie Byro (2023)

 

 Laurie Byro with her book, “New & Selected: Poetry of Laurie Byro.” Photo by Michael Byro

Review by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

Macabre, magical and mythical is the best words I can use to describe Laurie Byro’s “New and Selected: Poetry of Laurie Byro,” which propelled me into the world of Poe, Stein, Van Gogh, Bronte, Woolf, Cleopatra, fairy tale characters and Greek Goddesses as well as reveals family secrets. She writes from the point of view of the characters or someone observing them.

As a retired librarian, historian and world traveler as well as an award winning poet, Laurie earned my trust to take me on a journey to places I’d never been.

I couldn’t put the book down as I read this treasure trove of poems from all of her published books as well as new poems, mostly written during the pandemic which explore loneliness, separation, grief and feminism.

Like a magician, Laurie drew me in with catchy titles and then mesmerized me with her comedic flair, exquisite unique imagery, mind boggling imagination and clever stories.

Here’s a sneak preview of a fraction of the poems I especially enjoyed.

New Poems (2023)

e e cummings finally grows up

matthew and michael and morgan and mark
went down to the beach (skipped school on a lark)
and matthew found grass that smelled so sweetly
he couldn’t remember his troubles, and
michael befriended a Rasta-man
with dreds that became a head full of sun;
and morgan was chased by a crusty old cop
who sputtered they shouldn’t be where they were and
mark beach-combed a Roosevelt dime
from long-ago lands, and golden-days’ time
for whatever we’ve lost, my country tis of thee,
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.

From Zeus’s Wives & Other Goddesses (2023)

Themis Writes From Bankruptcy Court

Zeus? That Clod really cooked my goose.
Six children, all daughters, and very
 attractive (yeah they took after “the bomb”
me). Hey, like me, they have big boobs, big
dreams and big daddy bragging about all his

property. What IS a mother to do?
I maxed out Bank Americard on daughter
 #3’s wedding. AAA Master went with #5.
 Chase (now that name is a hoot) is being
utilized for my youngest darling. Between

us chickens that one belongs to the tribe of
Sappho. Wouldn’t you know they want
 “hers and hers” embroidered on everything.

Almighty Zeus, the tacky statues of them in
lip locks, the doilies with chocolaty mints.  I
should have my head examined
or in a noose. So I plead, Zeusie pooh, Zeus.
My money girdle, can you set it loose,
somewhat? Float me a loan, pretty please.
He glowers, threatens showers, and not
bridal. I sidle up doing the come hither,
begging: Don’t reign on our parade.

Instead, he orders a hail storm on the day
of Baby Girls’ nuptials. Yes, over their bed.
Just kill me now, right? Baby Mama Drama,
I am not even certain if he’s my legal spouse.
Lying-spider. Eight-timing louse.  So here I
 be, declaring bankruptcy. Pity me?
Just, don’t tell him. It will be easier to make
 payments once I refinance. The price tags of
 true romantics? They’re dear.   

From Hopeless Romance (2020)

After a Spring Snow
I Wait for a Friend

My heart yearns for the creak
of a gate, a wicker man carving apples,

the length of peel spiraling off the curve
of his wrist. Juncos peck snow off branches,

thirsty for the syrup of birches to wash down
blood-fat worms. My friend says

he’ll be here early. Perhaps the snow has kept
him away. When I return from walking

I see a wine jug on the porch. Inside,
a flurry of flour as he rolls dough

for our evening meal. Later, we tramp through
drifts waving a jug of wine, singing

in the snowy air. We touch, we talk. Cut
to a sliver, the moon bubbles in a black bowl.


From D’eux & Other Sorrows (2019)

The Ghost of Vincent Van Gogh Visits Gertrude Stein

I have watched you
And the one you call Alice
During the black petals of sleep,
When all hardness leaves your faces.

There is a field of tulips not far
from the town I lived in as a boy,
with ragged dark flowers.
The spongy earth
still makes these strong and odd,
almost devoid of beauty,
similarly different
from their pastel companions.

Most of my companions are whores.
If I want a woman, I give up
the few guilders set aside for bread
or paint—I’ve taken the one with lice,
with that violet birthmark staining her cheek.

You are husband to her with your lips.
Your woman’s body under those suits
you wear, the edges of your petals
give off luminous sparks,
so strangely you make fire.

If you look closely at my paintings,
you will know my women.
Their proud erect beauty,
their heavy-headed grace. Each Iris,
each Sunflower who has turned from us.

From La Dogaressa & Other Poems (2018)


Exhuming D.H. Lawrence

I was not always a ghost in your garden, a
fox or jack rabbit dancing beneath a Worm
Moon. We were not enemies, you or I, we
held hands once, then you breathed me into
 a cloud of fireflies, I followed you while you
cupped me in your hands, tore my wings off,
 raised me like Lazarus to be

what you wanted. Was I the quivering
 muzzle of fox or a shotgun; your hands
shook from touching me. Often, you offered
the rabbit a safe rest yet shunned me. You
 and those madmen picked through my ribs,

trying to find a heart. The fangy moon never
 knew whether to grin or clamp us in her soft
 grip of teeth.

Under the orders of Frau Gluhwurmchen,
was I the gutteral sounds the old moggie
 made, or the randy throated sparrow?

Was I the contralto murmurings of the river
 while thirsty peasants lay on their bellies to
drink? I want nothing more than to run
 through a forest again, twining flowers
in the fur of demon-fox, of vixen…
 

From The Bloomingberries and Other Curiousities (2017)

Madame Cézanne with Unbound Hair (1869)

You parted the cool braid
of my hair, it snaked like rain along your
 shoulder. Early autumn: yellow leaves laid

a pattern of eyes at our window. Colder
weather would cower them into cones
and we would sit crossed-legged on the bed

each uncurling the other like a fortune
teller’s hand. Poems
didn’t hold us as much as time passing. We

read to one another. You told me my hair
was a fragile ladder, we needed to escape
the turbulent green rivers that dared

to take us under. You kissed the nape
of my neck and spun out the coils of golden

brown. We practiced an ancient tapestry, the art form we found.

From Gertrude Stein’s Salon and Other Legends (2015)

Walking with Emily Bronte

To fall in love you need to be willing
to believe in ghosts and to know
the wild perfume of the implacable beast,
the insouciance of the untamed girl.

Words have scents like flowers.
Honeysuckle and harebell, desire trailed
me and in his madness threw me
from a cliff. I wander the high fells

neither to conjure up his drowsy shade
nor to perish alone in the fierce tempest
of love, but to once again go out gathering
garlands of moonbeams or lightning.
 

From Luna (2015)

St. Francis and the Opossum

The delicacy of the fingers on a bud can
unlock a flower, or the mind with the nub of
a pencil and so to remind the misunderstood,
cagey wizened old man, St. Francis placed
a grape in the hands of the opossum, as if he
were giving holy wine, the blood of the
divine.  Then, his mind was freed and the
sorrowful creature was unlocked and the
possum recalled how he had harmed

no one.  He felt acceptance twitch in his
prehensile tail, throughout his bare bristly
body, the tips of his delicate human fingers.
 He was cursed with a devilish snout full of
moon-jagged teeth.

But now he knew his place in the world, his
infinite ability to hunt and contribute to his
kind, his mind full of animal-business, and
he sighed and found forgiveness in the forest
 and his lovely animal self.

Packed with 140 stellar poems in 230 pages, the book is well worth the price of $15.00.

Read more about Laurie Byro:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/04/storyteller-of-week-laurie-byro-laurie.html

Buy the book:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Selected-Poetry-Laurie-Byro/dp/B0BW2ZKQ2F/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2OKXQU32FE11M&keywords=Laurie+Byro&qid=1692552111&s=books&sprefix=laurie+byro%2Cstripbooks%2C1359&sr=1-1

For autographed copies, contact Laurie at philbop@warwick.net