NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

An independent small press poetry review

NHI independent review
LEE GLANTZ: A HOUSE ON HER BACK
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This page last updated: 10th December 2007. 		LEE GLANTZ: A HOUSE ON HER BACK

Nine poems suggest a careful selection and the title suggests a weight of domesticity that a poem called ODE TO MY VACUUM CLEANER does nothing to dispel, yet this poem contains the image:

	... quivering, tense,
	barely able to contain
	your electric energy —
	a filly
	restrained at the starting gate
	raring to let loose,
	muscles twitching,
	—hooves straining to slap the track...
which suggests an interesting turn until it's reeled back in by:
	...moving as one entity
	in the natural rhythm of old couples
	comfortable with one another...
That word 'comfortable' also fits SISTER TURTLE
	...When my children were small,
	I tried to protect them from harm.
	I warned: don't fight, don't play in the street,
	don't talk to strangers.

	Of course, they fought, played in the street,
	talked to strangers.
	They stumbled, blundered, erred,
	entangled themselves
	in mind-boggling snares, yet
	with good fortune, survived...
which weakens the attempted analogy between children and young turtles who are up against considerably harsher odds. Perhaps the truth got in the way, but I would have preferred at least one of the two children to have battled a life-threatening disease or survived a near-fatal accident.

SHE HAD FRIENDS WHO WERE FUR AND TEETH sounds intriguing:

	... Sometimes they confused her for a pet, ordering her
	to fetch, shake hands, play dead. 
	Sometimes they pulled weeds from her garden and scattered them on her rugs.
	Other times they emptied soil and flowers from her terra cotta pots.
	They loathed her because she was weak.

	She had friends who were fur and teeth...
but also seems stifled by the house on her back. What's required is more BLISS with it's arresting final image:
	...How close the words mirage and marriage.

reviewer: Emma Lee.