Post by shayepoet on May 29, 2008 20:40:50 GMT 2
Behind the Pictures I Hang
Ada Jill Schneider
Love. In Behind the Pictures I Hang, many poems encompass the theme of love. When Ada Jill Schneider “counts the ways,” she speaks of more than young love. Rather, it is the joy that comes with the birth of a child, loving through sorrow, devotion to family—an abiding love that has endured into the poet’s 70s. As for Ron, her husband of over fifty years, she shamelessly discloses that romance and passion are not only for the young. Whether the setting is Taiwan or Italy or birding on the Taunton River in Somerset, Massachusetts, wherever Ada is, so is Ron.
Schneider’s work also reflects her admiration for the fervor of others, from Michael James, the renowned quiltmaker, to Pam Wilkinson, her irrepressible hairdresser in Fall River, to “The Psychiatrist with Gorgeous Shoes.” Peek behind these pictures Ada Jill Schneider has so expertly hung, and discover a portrait of love, and sometimes “Fireworks,” that is very personal and, at the same time, universal.
Sample Poem:
Romance
To think such passion can come
with one click on your remote control.
Shostakovich’s violin solo,
Romance, plays over and over,
as long as we wish, till we’re rhapsodic.
I love how we click, the way
we push away the years, fluff them
out above our king-sized bed,
then cover ourselves in their warmth.
Our son once said if it weren't for sex,
he'd be gay—women are trouble.
What he meant was love is trouble.
The give and take, how the route
to rapture so quickly turns into a rut—
the phonograph needle scratching
annoyance and anger deep into
the same old groove. But haven’t we stuck
it out from vinyl through tape to CD’s?
Old love may be expensive, but it’s worth
every argument, every bouquet of apology.
Not gaudy gift-wrap or French ribbon.
I mean fine-tuning, upgrading our music.
Click on Shostakovich again, Love,
and acting from within (where I'm sixteen)
I'll take your crinkled loving face
into my two age-spotted hands
and kiss you like there’s no tomorrow.
Reviews for Behind the Pictures I Hang:
“These sly and accomplished poems work in layered ways. The poet delights in speaking out of two sides of her mouth at the same time. Schneider’s wit and irreverence electrify the sentiments. This book is an unnerving pleasure to read.”
—Natasha Sajé, author of Bend
“Ada Jill Schneider is a celebrant of love, in many forms, but most deliciously of marriage in which, “we stuck it out from vinyl to tape to CDs.” What a joy to read poems of such deep humanity and wit.”
—Betsy Sholl, Poet Laureate of Maine
“The lump in your throat is as natural as love.”
—Alec Dyson Brown, author of Sentiment & Sense
“These poems are home movies expertly edited and spliced to make shareable a life rich with love, family ritual, humor, and enduring contemplation. They illuminate that...stage where sensuality and awareness of…mortality intersect and, in the light of Ada Jill Schneider’s generous and forthright gaze, manage to co-exist in harmony.”
—Leslie Ullman, author of Slow Work through Sand
About the author:
Ada Jill Schneider, winner of the National Galway Kinnell Poetry Prize, is the author of several volumes of poetry, most recently Behind the Pictures I Hang published by Spinner in November 2007. She directs “The Pleasure of Poetry,” a program she founded, at the Somerset Public Library in Massachusetts and reviews poetry books for Midstream magazine. Ada has an MFA from Vermont College.
Website
ISBN: 978-0-932027-66-5, 112 pages, $13.00
Spinner Publications, Inc.
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