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Dumars, Denise, 2003, letting in the dark, Yellow Bat Press, Adrian, Michigan, 28 pages. Cover by Matthew Snead. www.yellowbat.com, ISBN 0-9718215-5-0, Pocket-size saddle-stitched chapbook. $3.
So what if this chapbook is nine years old? It is new to me, and very likely to some of you. The book is still available from the publisher, and also from the author. I have known Denise's work for a long time, but this is the first of her publications I have reviewed. This miniature chapbook contains 17 poems. I do not see an acknowledgments section, so I think that means all of these poems were published here first.
These poems seem to tell a story of a life, or part of a life, but they do it obliquely. They don't come right out with autobiographical incidents. In fact, much of what's here doesn't seem to come from the material world at all. It's more like you took snippets out of an imaginary diary, snippets that happened to be poems. They are all redolent of myth and magic.
Who is this, in the title poem, “Letting in the Dark”?
He is a natty dresser
with Bergamot pomade
on his India ink hair
and the scent of cherry tobacco
in his rustling of cloak.
This is love, of a kind, in “First Harvest”
the yellow eyes grown amber
as the second harvest
in a month of two full moons
and if we draw our black lips back
we perhaps could laugh
This book doesn't reside entirely in a dream world. Dumars presents a mix of what could be real with what must be fantasy. From “What is Forgiven”
In the calendula fields
a girl's cinnamon skin is dusted
with gold petals. The boy
dressed in white feeds her
a sugar skull.
I can't help wondering who needed to be forgiven in the kernel that led to that poem. There is a theme here, or there are themes. Celebration of one kind or another runs through this book. Letting in the Dark is a celebration. Celebration of life, loss, love. Forgiveness and memory. And darkness. This tiny book bears rereading. The passage of years has, if anything, made it more apt for all of us. Let the dark in before it's too late.
So what if this chapbook is nine years old? It is new to me, and very likely to some of you. The book is still available from the publisher, and also from the author. I have known Denise's work for a long time, but this is the first of her publications I have reviewed. This miniature chapbook contains 17 poems. I do not see an acknowledgments section, so I think that means all of these poems were published here first.
These poems seem to tell a story of a life, or part of a life, but they do it obliquely. They don't come right out with autobiographical incidents. In fact, much of what's here doesn't seem to come from the material world at all. It's more like you took snippets out of an imaginary diary, snippets that happened to be poems. They are all redolent of myth and magic.
Who is this, in the title poem, “Letting in the Dark”?
He is a natty dresser
with Bergamot pomade
on his India ink hair
and the scent of cherry tobacco
in his rustling of cloak.
This is love, of a kind, in “First Harvest”
the yellow eyes grown amber
as the second harvest
in a month of two full moons
and if we draw our black lips back
we perhaps could laugh
This book doesn't reside entirely in a dream world. Dumars presents a mix of what could be real with what must be fantasy. From “What is Forgiven”
In the calendula fields
a girl's cinnamon skin is dusted
with gold petals. The boy
dressed in white feeds her
a sugar skull.
I can't help wondering who needed to be forgiven in the kernel that led to that poem. There is a theme here, or there are themes. Celebration of one kind or another runs through this book. Letting in the Dark is a celebration. Celebration of life, loss, love. Forgiveness and memory. And darkness. This tiny book bears rereading. The passage of years has, if anything, made it more apt for all of us. Let the dark in before it's too late.
