Carmel Magazine

C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 1 5 105 The horror, regret, and disbelief are all palpa- ble, any parent's worst nightmare, and she writes about it all with remarkable, admirable candor. How does one begin to make sense of it? "Rare Bird" is her attempt to do that. While it contains all the anguish you would expect, what's unexpected is how the memoir also dish- es up hope, faith, gratitude, miracles, forgiveness, acceptance and inspiration. Jack, his mom, dad and sister all emerge heroic. In a passage toward the end of the memoir, Anna is mowing the grass her son Jack used to mow. She speaks to her husband. " 'Do you remember it being this hard?' I ask Tim. 'No, the roots and the hills! Our yard is so steep. How did he do it?' Tim wonders, shaking his head. "We are silent. We both feel remorse. "I push the mower up over high, high roots, cursing as I use all my strength. I roll past the garden bed, along a steep slope, and feel the tension as the mower tilts and threatens to tip me over, down the hill…" "'I'm sorry buddy,' I say as I crisscross the yard. 'I didn't know.'" "…And I realize as I mow and talk to Jack, that when I say 'I'm sorry buddy' and 'I didn't know,' I'm probably not talking just about mow- ing anymore." Their treacherous lawn, its gnarly roots and steep slope, the heavy mower that could take one down, mow one over—all of this a lovely metaphor for the harsh and ragged topography of grief. Sunday with the Sound Turned Off Poems by Andrea Werblin First, a necessary disclaimer : I am not a poet, nor well-versed in the terminology with which to discuss poetry. But I fell in love with the cover art—a painting by Debra Gregerman—and felt compelled to see what was inside. Werblin's subject matter ranges from the intensely personal ("Anti-Depressing") to the romantic ("Wise Mind") to the political ("It Pours" and "Fiery Mind, Peaceable Desert" about the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Arizona shootings of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others). The work is stark, hon- est, self-convicting, visual, auditory and tactile, as seen in these favorite lines from "An Edge of Idaho": "As if a hyphen of flowers appears across the lake/with its prim charms…"; "Gone the treatise/on how I am so wrong and shored by drama,/gone blame,/ the dumb-with-silence creek,/its thing for suicide, its neuroses"; "….at night/the underscored trains sound like every- thing/I let myself like about him, his Bakelite face,/The idea of being involved somehow in the maddening/musical distance of things bedrocked in us…". These poems are meant to be read aloud. It's impossible, when doing so, not to find a rhythm and a music, an experimentation with strung- together sound, delightful on your tongue and lips. For example, these lines from the second version of the title poem—"Sunday with the Sound Turned Off (2)": "The boys slouched on opposing brackets of beach,/they are guitars unto themselves. They are hollow-/bodied, taut with string…"; "They are prosperously celled, pure containers./As almost-swimmable as the sea itself,/if you forget its cast-off condoms and crab ghosts." I'll close, as Werblin does, with "Silent Toast," a good poem for a new year : "To your better synaptic self, the math of all/that longing: just give your word each year/you are asked,/even if you have to rehearse it./ Even if the smells of cut grass & seawater/conspiring to make you whole, fail./ (It is only that they have chosen someone else)./Give your word, swear it is nothing per- sonal./Rehearse, rehearse." Happy 2015, y'all. These books can be found locally at Pilgrim's Way Community Bookstore in Carmel by-the-Sea. Melanie Bishop's young adult novel, "My So-Called Ruined Life," was recently released by Torrey House Press. Bishop brings to the Monterey Peninsula 22 years of college-level teaching in creative writing, and 18 years as founding editor of Alligator Juniper, a national literary magazine. She offers courses, writing retreats and editing services in Carmel-by-the-Sea. For more information, go to www.melaniebishopwriter.wordpress.com

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