Blue Window by Deborah Gordon Cooper (2017. Clover Valley Press. ISBN 978-0-9973643-2-3)
I am remiss. I bought a signed, personalized copy of Deb Cooper’s latest poetry collection last fall, at her book launch at Peace Church in Duluth. Not normally attracted to poetry readings, I went to the event with my 89 year old mother because it sounded therapeutic. Mom had recently lost her husband and I, my stepfather. We needed something to get us out of the house and back into the stream of life. Plus, I know Deb. I know her compassion, her faith, her kindness, and her poetry. I figured that an afternoon listening to her work would be palliative. It was.
There are many jewels in this slender volume. I marveled, as I read and re-read the book (3 times so far!), at Deb’s crisp, concise, unfailingly honest look at life in all its joys and sorrows. It also helps that the title of the collection is taken from my favorite Neil Young song, “Helpless”. You know the lyrics: Blue, blue moon behind the stars, yellow moon on the rise…Taking her cue from what is likely the best Canadian folk song ever written, the poet uses Young’s expression of longing and angst and the past to launch a very, very well conceived expression of similar feelings, thoughts, and circumstances.
My personal favorites include the lengthy work, “Central Hillside”, an episodic poem that chronicles the lives of disparate folks, young and old, as they go about their lives on Duluth’s hillside. One can picture the neighborhood she depicts, spreading out on the steeps just below the church where she held her book launch, each life chronicled as important and complex as the next.
Another of the poems that touched a nerve is “If I Could Take it Back”, wherein the narrator considers actions that cause her regret and shame:
If I could take back
every snide remark
the way I terrorized
my brothers…
This exemplar lamentation should whet your appetite and cause you to pick up a copy of this fine volume of home-grown verse from Zenith Bookstore or The Bookstore at Fitger’s. Anyone with siblings or who grew up in the rough and tumble times of post-war suburban life will appreciate the images manifested in this listing of regrets.
There’s also a section completed (hinted at but not expressly confirmed) by the poet when on a retreat in Ireland. This second chapter, if you will, bears the book’s title, as does my favorite poem from Cooper’s Irish-influenced verse:
In the wee hours,
I dream another woman’s dreams
the dreams of a boat;
the dream of the garden,
sweet peas and cabbages.
Wake with her story
rotting in my mouth
potatoes rotting
in the ground…
Well done, Ms. Cooper. Well done. Thanks for helping us heal.
4 and 1/2 stars out of 5.
Peace.
Mark
