Book of the Week

Three A. M.  at the Museum (Kelsay Books 2021)

 By Alarie Tennille

 

 Alarie Tennille and her book, “Three A.M at the Museum”

Review by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

Alarie Tennille’s poetry collection, Three A. M. the Museum, is stunning, smart and sassy and filled with Ekphrastic and literary treasures. The poems are carefully crafted with a sharp sense of perception, irony and surprise.

Whether she is creating stories from a painting, a movie, her imagination or real life, we are looking over her shoulder viewing life through her unique technicolor lenses. Reading the book is like viewing a Bergman film, reading a Steinbeck novel or gazing at a Monet painting while enjoying our favorite Cabernet.

She begins the book with an introduction from Lorette C. Luzajic, Founder and Editor, The Ekphrastic Review, who writes:

“Alarie’s poetry holds the unique ability to open our eyes in new directions and catch what we might miss. She observes the ordinary long enough to find its magic and show us, too. The poet Al Ortolani noticed this, and said, “Tennille is a master of the subtle bump, the tap on the shoulder—the hey, look again.” This captures the essence of her poetry, and indeed, the essence of what poetry should be: accessible and enchanted at the same time.”

Enchanted and accessible it is. I’ll let her poetry speak for itself.

Redhead

What a creep! Guess I don’t like
the strong, silent type after all.
He seemed nice enough
at intermission when he asked
me out for coffee.

Smiled when he told me he spotted
me from the balcony. With hair
like a neon sign, I hear that a lot.
Soon there won’t be any bachelors
around older than this blond kid.

We chatted about the concert
till we got here. Then he clammed up
like he thought I might be a spy.
Maybe he’s one.

inspiration: the film, I, Claude Monet, at the Tivoli in Kansas City

At the Movies with Monet

Naturally, we go to an art house.
Monet remembers the first movies
by the Lumière brothers. I assure
him his art will be shown in full color.

It’s almost dark, nearly quiet
fifteen minutes before the show.
Few couples chat, preferring to sit
side-by-side staring at their private
mini-screens. No one notices Monet.

He jiggles my seat, nervous
without a smoke. Mon dieu! he says.
Relax, you’ll be great, I promise.
Pffew! he adds. I despise the opinions
of the press and the so-called critics.
I tell him he coined the motto of our times.

A loud ringtone at the end of our aisle
makes him jump. Sacré bleu! he explodes.
When a woman’s voice over speaker phone
tells us she’s had an upsetting day,
Claude leaps to his feet.

I tug hard on his famous tweed jacket,
make him sit. We’re both relieved
when Bergman’s Death appears
on screen in his black cloak, warning us
to turn off cell phones.

A few minutes into the film, Claude
pulls out his handkerchief. It’s him,
all him in his own words, voiced
by an actor who gradually shifts his voice
to the crackle of an old man. I don’t sound
that old, Claude grumbles.

Aunt Vera and Uncle…

Half a picture, half a story.
I didn’t know my uncle’s face
or even his name –
he was Vera’s Mistake,
Vera’s Good for Nothing,
the mysterious Him of family legend.
And though I often wanted
to snip my brother
out of family photos,
I was made to understand
that no wrong,
no amount of ornery meanness
would ever equal
what this uncle by marriage
had done to us all.

*inspiration: The Best Is Yet to Be by Lorette C. Luzajic

Reading the Signs
 
BAM! STRIKE! Get ready for it.
Your fate is about to change.
That’s right, I don’t use tarot cards

or read palms. I read faces, and yours
is calling my bluff. So why can’t you
believe the best is yet to come?
 
First you must run toward it, work for it.
Go out and search for hope. Carry
a butterfly net into the fog of despair.

Blindly scoop if that’s the best you can
do. Unseen forces will guide you.
It’s much like the work of a poet

looking for ideas. Here’s a poem, there’s
another. What signs do you track?
Like dreams and fingerprints,
 
the numbers, symbols, and sounds
that you sense will be unique to you.
But many clients report a feeling

of weightlessness, like they’re floating
out of a dense gray fog into a cobalt
blue sky, with splashes of neon sunrise.

Whether you are a poet or just an average reader, you will view life in a different way after reading Three A.M. in the Museum.

To read Alarie’s bio and other poems on this blog:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/04/storyteller-of-week_8.html

Buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Three-M-at-Museum/dp/195435360X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38GNFW248FBHS&keywords=Alarie+Tennille&qid=1694628451&s=books&sprefix=alarie+tennille%2Cstripbooks%2C1001&sr=1-1