LOVE Lessons

This small book of twenty-one poems is a gem. As I finished my second, third, fourth reading and diligently was taking notes, I realized I didn’t have to hunt for the theme. Capek told me the theme. Love Lessons in poems transcribed over fifty years of the poet’s life. Truly I have, just as the poet, received lessons about love. However, I perceive some of the poet’s lessons have occurred in places I’ve never been, or perhaps I was in places where I should not have been, and then, fortunately in places where… ah, yes….

“Odd, this loving, the wonder at it all,
all my senses jangling, blurred with memories
of those who mattered most and shaped the part of me I trust the least.”
(excerpt from “Susie”)

I was able to be in the midst of my blurred memories and identify with the transparency that Capek so deftly displays. Relatable, I label it, strongly relatable.

I am reminded of Capek’s “Dying for Art, in (bitter) memory of Anne Sexton.” Anne was considered to be a confessional poet, one who wrote of personal struggles using the pronoun “I” and figurative language. Most poems in Love Lessons seem confessional, evoking a strong emotional response. For example, the very first piece in the book is most entertaining, creative, and involves many sensory images. The poet is dancing in the school basement, never chosen as a partner, so pressed to dance with the teacher or Bert. One thinks  the poem ends with Bert doing time in a reformatory. However, a page turn opens the reader to more of the poet’s traumatic school days as children tease; and yes, “chosen or not chosen, we measured time by twos” (“Dancing Class”).

Moving page by page through a buffet of experiences, confessions and insight, each poem is justified in being a lesson about, through, enveloped in and intriguingly LOVE.

“Sensuality” must be addressed within this brief review. It is absolutely stunning with images of “spun like cotton candy in your mouth” and utilizing my very favorite metaphor, the lovemaking is not creating for the poet what she longs for. “Instead, stiff with fear, I’m a cardboard cone stripped of sweets….” The female leaves to “trudge off into the cold night” just as I set myself up for a similar disappointing love affair, literally trudging home. I understand! Who of us hasn’t trudged off?

And so this book continues, and if the reader cannot identify or relate in some fashion with one of the poems, well, I guarantee, you will! You will find a hidden nugget of truth and undoubtedly respond, “I am not the only survivor.”

The poem “Pink” carries the reader into admitting, “Why yes, I too have considered dyeing my hair one of these colors, pink or blue, maybe lavender?” Is this “another rebellion at 81?” Yes, yes, and again yes. I too am 81! I too have dyed my hair to cover the gray. I too have wondered if I should or could delight in a rainbow of colors. But “Now I hesitate, curious: can I just imagine pink? And act accordingly?” What a wonderful conclusion that delights me, although ”Asylum” is the final poem and not “Pink.”

Just as this thin pink book appeals to me, it will appeal to you too. It isn’t a book to put on the shelf. It’s a book to introduce the reader to thoughts and deeds, limits and freedom, of being eighty-one and ready to measure time by sharing love’s lessons. Was that an “Amen” I just heard?