Lyric poems that are open to readers; Strong imagery; Poems that describe the need to build “bridges” between people; Interesting accounts of a single woman in Italy; The difficulties involved in learning to age gracefully; The act of writing as a means of living with courage in crossing the narrow bridge of life. COMPARATIVE TITLES: The Road in Is Not the Same Road Out by Karen Solie (Anansi, 2015); The Wrong Cat by Lorna Crozier (McClelland & Stewart, 2015); The Waking Comes Late by Steven Heighton (Anansi, 2015).
“All the world is a narrow bridge,” states Rabbi Nachman of Bresnov. “The important thing is not to be afraid at all.” These poems, Barbara Pelman’s third collection, explore bridges both real and metaphoric: the bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden where her family lives; the bridges she has travelled across Europe; and the bridges we build through words and actions to overcome our separateness from one another. The poet writes about lovers, mothers, daughters, ex-husbands, grandchildren, and her attempts to construct solid foundations for the heart to travel easily across time and space. Pelman writes of her love of landscapes and the things in them, and the everyday epiphanies that happen in one’s backyard. These are poems that explore the tension between living in one place but wanting to be in another, the losses and freedoms contained in solitude, the process of learning to age gracefully. The act of writing, Pelman says, is itself a talisman against fear, a mantra of boldness and courage to live con spirito.