Short Poetry Book Reviews: WOMAN WITHOUT SHAME: LITTLE ALLELUIAS: and GOLDENROD

Our yard, a year ago this week. Spring has sprung!

April and National Poetry Month are rapidly coming to a close. This month I read six poetry books in celebration of this literary art form. I've reviewed three of the books earlier in the month and will wrap up with short reviews of the other three. If you would like to look back on the first three reviews, click on the hyperlinks:

The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang
Poems & Prayers by Matthew McConaughey
Why Fathers Cry at Night by Kwame Alexander

Woman Without Shame: Poems by Sandra Cisneros (2022)

Years ago I read A House on Mango Street which was Cisneros' her first novel and her most famous book. She has since then published many other novels, essays, and short story collections. This is her first poetry collection published in the last twenty-five years. Since I was familiar with her first novel, widely published and read by young teens, I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. I was expecting a G rating and got PG-17! 

Cisneros is 71-years-old, unmarried, and lives in Mexico right now, though she has spent much of her life living in the USA. In fact, her childhood was destabilized by how often she and her family moved back and forth between the two countries, making her feel like she never fit in in either culture. When she was an undergraduate in college she had an affair with one of her professors and that relationship was abusive. She describes it as “very damaging to me” and is “why my writing is always dealing with sexuality and wickedness” (Wikipedia). I caught the sexuality and wickedness vibes from many of the poems. Several of those poems I just skipped over figuring I didn't need to know the details.

The collection is divided into five parts with headings in Spanish. Usually, in my experience, when poetry books are divided up into parts, the sections relate to the title of the collection where those poems were originally published. I don't think that it is case here, since this book has more the 50 original poems in it. Translated her sections are: Shameless Woman; A Hatless Sky; Songs and Cries; Cisneros is Uncensored; A Little Something Extra. I liked some poems in all the sections but my least favorites were all in the uncensored part. Oh well, I know I'm a prude. Here is a little highlight from the collection:

Back Then and Even Now

A Song for Guitar

I liked being young

with you once.

A moment or two, 

here and there

with you once.

When you 

were a poet,

and I was a poet.

Wordsmiths afraid

of the words

shimmering

right before us.

One thing I could feel in every poem was Cisneros' passion, a little bit of her angst, and her loneliness.

I probably would have liked the poems better if I could read Spanish since many of the poems contained untranslated words. My rating: 4 stars.

 

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Little Alleluias: Collected Poetry and Prose by Mary Oliver (2025)

Mary Oliver died in 2019. Call me surprised when I saw a new collection of Oliver's poems and prose for sale in a bookstore in 2025, Little Alleluias. The poor gal at the checkout counter who tried to look interested while she rang up my purchase as I babbled about my excitement at something new by a beloved, but dead poet. Well, I was half right. The poems and prose were by Mary Oliver, but they were not new (obviously) but just a new organization of some her poems, essays, and literary criticism.  

The editor of Little Alleluia said this in the acknowledgment section:

Little Alleluias is a midlife masterpiece -- so to end as we begin: thank you Mary Oliver for your insight and grace, for teaching us how to belong to a land that belongs to itself, and for guiding us through the light and dark, and rainbowed clothes of the world. -Niyata

I love the title, Little Alleluias, don't you? In the forward to the section called " Long Life" Mary Oliver, herself, wrote about the difference between writing poetry and writing prose. She prefers poetry but I think her prose is pretty darn good, too. It is in her conclusion where we find out about the book's title:

One thing I want to mention before the pages actually begin. Writing poems, for me but not necessarily for others, is a way of offering praise to the world. In this book, you will find, set among prose pieces, a few poems. Think of them that way, as little alleluias. They're not trying to explain anything as the prose does. They just sit there on the page and breathe. A few lilies, or wrens, or trout among the mysterious shadows, the cold water, and the somber oaks.

I'm fairly sure I've read all the poems and most of the prose before, but it was so comforting to visit them again with new eyes and in different circumstances. There are none of my personal favorites included therein but there are many wonderful poems which encourage us to be aware of nature. In "Sand Dabs, Nine" Mary Oliver shares little thoughts, really, but more than that. One reviewer referred to her Sand Dabs as “just a few lines, largehearted and limber, each saturated with meaning and illustrating the principle it espouses in a clever meta-manifestation of that principle embedded in the language itself." Here are a few of her "Sand Dabs, Nine" thoughts:

All the eighth notes Mozart didn't have time to use before he entered the cloudburst, he gave to the wren.

Behind the glimmering cheerfulness of Bach there hangs a black thread.

You too can be carved by the details of your devotion.

If you are a Mary Oliver fan or haven't discovered her yet, I recommend this collection. It will make you fall in love with her writing, all over again or for the first time. My rating: 5 stars.

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Goldenrod: Poems by Maggie Smith (2021)

Several years ago I read the poem "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith. I think I discovered it long after most people did when it came out in 2016. The poem, or the fame that came with the poem, led to big changes in Maggie Smith's life, including a divorce from her husband. In subsequent books  she writes about those experiences. In this small collection, Goldenrod, I caught glimpses of trauma of the divorce in a few poems but generally I'd say the poetry speaks to the moments she is living now with her children and her new life. Oddly, I often find myself worrying about poets as I try to read between the lines to figure out what is going on. I'd guess, based on these poems, Maggie Smith has landed on her feet. 

Maggie Smith's poems are easy to read and very straight forward. One doesn't have to guess what she is referring to, at least not on the surface. In her poem, "December 18, 2008", she expresses a thought I've never even considered before. Clearly, in this poem she is referring to the birth of a child (one of her children?)

For just a fraction of a moment

that afternoon, if we think of time

as being a while, you were the newest

person in the world. You were

the emptiest vessel on earth, 

knowing nothing of this place

or of yourself ---

This poem danced out for my eyes since one of my children was also born on Dec. 18th. In another poem "Not Everything Is a Poem" Smith muses about what she finds in her son's pocket.

Not everything is a poem

or has a poem inside it, but god help me

if I can't find one when I empty

my son's pockets before I do

the wash: one acorn, two rocks

(one smooth and gray, one rough

and glittering, flecked pink), 

a chunk of mulch, a wilted

dandelion. The poem is there...

This collection makes me smile. My rating: 4 stars.

-Anne