NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
NINA STEIN: PRIMER
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This page last updated: 10th December 2007.
NINA STEIN: PRIMER

This is a small stapled chapbook. Nina Stein was born in NYC, grew up in Rhode R Island and is a social worker in Newport, RI.

The material is presented as two "paragraphs" per page and the overall subject could be a number of things, but seems to settle on death and the beauty of the garden:

Dear silverfinger, beloved cousin of columbine, conceived in subterfuge, under the rose. Had you forgotten? Today is lilies and obsequies, inkling and clematis, lull'd and ribbed in the rill by the rote. And have you been hiding the entire time the y as of yet? The moon is so worried about you. Oh, my ornamental love, I am left with what I gave to you. Rosemary, costmary, your sisters sleep in a waterjar. What is still, where grows. You are welcome to riddance, I am wedded to wait.
In some places, the words lead you off at a tangent, and I believe this is deliberate. In some places, they seem undisciplined but overall the standard is surprisingly good. This is because Stein has a keen sense of the visual and has obviously paid attention to the Surrealist poets. Stein has it in her to give gems. One of the problems with a piece of work that is quite a lengthy prose poem, is sustaining interest, especially when the material is experimental and not clear in its direction. Stein's work tries to clamber from the page and requires performance, yet some of the juxtapositions are exceedingly deep and need to be read slowly to be absorbed. This is a clever piece of work, which is very worthy of this type of chapbook series.

reviewer: Doreen King.