All of the poems in this chapbook speak to and from the heart. But they are far from sentimental-instead, they affirm Dees’ fine skills in poetic craft and observation, and her ability to reflect on life’s frequently fragile mysteries. Some of the poems meditate on personal experiences, from the internalized electric eel shocks of unknown ancestors ( My Grandparents’ Ghosts ) to the near-loss of a friend ( Coronary Truth ), and even the little-used razor with rose-colored handle ( The Iconography of Aging ). Others are attuned to the startling grace of nature, from ephemeral dragonflies to blind fish swimming towards the light. Water and breath inform Dees’ lyrical language throughout, as does a conviction that poetry’s own infused spirituality can create inexplicable channels of patterned light ( When I was Baptized ), a belief amply and beautifully demonstrated in this selection. Sarah Law
Together, the poems in this wonderful collection have a mission: they are searching-into heritage, at the present state of the world, and, with as much hope as dread, into the future. Like the sacramental water Diane Elayne Dees describes, these wise and moving poems will find a tributary to your mind and to your heart.
James Penha
It may be no coincidence that I felt an odd pressure in my heart…the physical organ itself…when I read through Diane Elayne Dees’s Coronary Truth. As if the truth of our inevitable end was biologically manifesting itself inside me as I read through these poems. They truly come alive when we start to learn the stories of her past, the mother and grandmother who have left, the memories of a childhood that seems so distant amidst the presence of a life that is uncomfortably close to having been mostly lived. We see the futility of it all when a heart attack is juxtaposed with nature, going on, doing its thing with no care paid to the trauma. We see all of life, beginning to end, through the eyes of a poet and the nature she interacts with. Life is precious and finite. Let’s never stop shaving and be cautious of the giant owl.
Rick Lupert
