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What Ed Bennett wrote:
One of the many definitions of poetry is that it uses elevated language to engender emotions
in the reader. One of the oldest forms is the elegy, examples of which can be found in ancient
religious texts. The eloquent and moving elegy sung by David at the death of Jonathan in the
Book of Samuel is a fine example. Usually, the focus is on the deceased with a recitation of
their virtues.

Barbara Crooker's collection of poetry, Gold, uses this classical poetic form to explain the
changes in worldview experienced by those who mourn. The book is constructed around the death
of the poet's mother, a traumatic rite of passage that we each experience. She divides the poems
into 4 parts, beginning with her mother's last illness. The advance of the illness finds the poet
praying, asking: (in the end lines) Will I be strong enough
to row across the ocean of loss
when my turn comes to take the oars?


Late Prayer
by Barbara Crooker

It's not that I'm not trying
to love the world and everything
in it, but look, that includes people
who shoot up schools, not just the blue
bird in his coat of sky, his red & white vest,
or the starry asters speckling the field‐
It has to include talk show hosts
and all their blather, men with closed
minds and hard hearts, not only this sky,
full of clouds as a field of sheep,
or this wind, pregnant with rain. It's got
to include politicians. Don't I have enough
in my life; what is this wild longing?
Is there more to this world than the shining
surfaces? Will I be strong enough
to row across the ocean of loss
when my turn comes to take the oars?


from GOLD (Cascade Books, 2013)


Ed's full review can be reviewed here:

http://quillandparchment.com/archives/Nov2013/Gold.html

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