Book of the Week

 Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound (Kelsay Books) 

 Poems by Carolynn Kingyens

 

 Review by Sharon Waller Knutson

In her debut collection, Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound, Carolynn Kingyens has the uncanny ability to take a slice of life and turn it into a meat and potatoes meal which leaves you satisfied but craving more.

Corey Cook, editor of Red Eft Review and the former Orange Room Review, who published Carolynn’s poems for years said he marveled at the energy in her poems. He calls the book “unflinching and unabashedly honest.”

“There is nothing false here,” Cook wrote. “She holds the readers close and shows us all that is intimate and sacred.”

She had me hooked from the very first poem. I was impressed with how she captured the intensity and complexity of life and relationships with brilliant imagery and sounds..

Here are some of my favorite poems:

Autoimmune

Some diseases take time
to manifest,
turning your body
against your body slowly,
cellular changes so subtle
they are imperceptible
for decades;
through the birth
of your daughter,
death of your mother,
through the drawn-out divorce
from Richard – Dick…
never truly believing him
when he said he loved you,
through the five day,
 cross-country move
when you turned forty;
buying a two-bedroom
bungalow in Venice Beach,
painting the house colors
you wouldn’t normally
 choose –colors like lime-green,
salmon-pink, banana-yellow, ocean-blue.
 
You adopt a stray cat
you name Kerouac.
He trusts you overtime,
brushing his lean,
black body against your
ankles every morning,
purring, both of you
content.

It starts with numbness,
that pins and needles-
feeling, the way your limbs
suddenly fall flat-asleep
when sitting cross-legged for too long,

Next the twitching
and random falling
that embarrass you at first –
before the diagnosis,
before you learn your
disease could be named. 

Silent Treatment

He watched her walk away
from another fight,
watched her turn from him
to embrace the afternoon
shining through an open window
above the sink
where she watched
their boys from a distance
chase the neighbors calico
up a Japanese Maple
where it panted for life
on a limb too high
for their small,
outstretched hands.

She turned her attention
back to washing dishes
and washed so vigorously,
the teacups clapped
their saucers,
spoons, oval moons
eclipsed rims of coffee
mugs, butter knives
slid inside the fork in forks.

And it was a surprise
when he walked up
behind her to rub the nape
of her neck, gently gliding
his hand down the length
of her arm into the warm,
sudsy water where he found
her hand hiding
under the shelter
of a capsized bowl.

Fantasy Meeting

Let’s say we run into
one another unplanned,
at Grand Central Station
at rush hour;
marching among the mobs,
those coming and going,
dragging their wheeled-
weight luggage through
the marble station
to the stereo sounds
of routine announcements
by a man with a thick
New York accent,
who is standing behind
official looking plexiglass,
announcing delays
and early arrivals,
a lost child or found tickets.

It's here, among the chaos,
where we will meet.
I’m hot again in this
fantasy meeting –
successful, a card carrying
somebody, someone you
would never expect
I’d turn out to be,
and your eyes will tell
of your regret.

We will exchange superficial
greetings as strangers
often do, and lie about
pending plans and exciting
lives back home.

You will try to forget
the Florida-shaped birthmark
on my thigh, and I will try
to forget the surgical scar
on your shoulder blade
from a ski accident
in Aspen when you
were twelve, kissing it
that night I saw you naked
and vulnerable in my doorway.

The Northerners

It seemed we moved
into new houses
every two years;
getting up early
those first mornings
with loud yawns,
an exaggerated stretch,
almost contentment.

Even our neighbors
were shiny and new -
at first; and at first,
we were open,
taking them up on their
generous invitations
of summer-fun BBQs,
and southern fish fries;
you in the center of hunters,
fishermen, men who liked
to work with their hands —
a man’s man: the kind
my father respected,
and took at their word.

How uncomfortable
you looked standing there,
holding a cold Sam Adams,
bobbing your head
in agreement
on the art of deer hunting,
aware your dear wife
loved animals;
how I covered my eyes
as we drove by
their broken,
awkwardly-bent carcasses
strewn on the side of roads.

You watched me
from across the deck, too,
sitting at a picnic table
with their chatty wives,
dressed in black-knit jersey,
wearing my beloved,
amber-colored beads.

You noticed the nuance
in our styles —
the women in their pink
and butter-yellow Polo’s,
their white-shroud Capri’s,
how their clothes
reflected the afternoon sun
instead of absorbing it.

You couldn’t understand
why every sentence
started and ended with Honey
like Honey, I’ll get that, or
You don’t want to do that, Honey.
It was a little too intimate
for Northerners.


Read more about Carolyn:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/08/storyteller-of-week_11.html

Buy the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Before-Big-Bang-Makes-Sound/dp/1950462692/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1H6RTKNAJ2P9B&keywords=Carolynn+Kingyens&qid=1701096561&s=books&sprefix=carolynn+kingyens%2Cstripbooks%2C787&sr=1-1