Prolific poetry blogger Bethany Reid not only generously reviewed God in Her Ruffled Dress recently in Calyx, the journal of literature and art by women, but also posted this follow-up blog.
Check out Reid's other reviews there too!
She includes a poem from the book that I haven't foregrounded much: "Emily Dickinson at Work."
EMILY DICKINSON AT WORK
she pulls
the thread
through the linen
on the embroidery frame
and at her writing table
through the white packet
of paper poems
the next morning tapping
the keyboard
piecing together
the html
<br> <br/>
marking and closing
the breaks
a figure in a white dress
silent under
fluorescent lights
at her place at the long table
beside the other programmers
listening to the enclosing
emptiness a white
pillow invisibly
holding the lines of code
on her screen
where she glimpses
her own
reflected smile
“I can make the zigzag stitches
Straight—when I am strong—
Till then—dreaming I am sewing”
the shape of God walking
through it like bird’s feet
tracks in the snow
“I’ll begin to Sew
When the Birds begin to whistle—”
a song hummed
under her breath
a bare small wind
she painstakingly places
the letters and brackets
she for whom
“Success in Circuit lies”
here and now are not
where everything
that ticked has stopped
no part of her shaven
instead tick by tick
her mind the mind
forming the frame
Here's a small quote from the Calyx review:
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| Excerpt from Calyx review of God in Her Ruffled Dress |
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