Blues for French Roast with Chicory
Review by Jim Lewis, Editor, Verse-Virtual
Here is longing for what was and what never was. Newberry uses juxtaposition freely to illuminate life’s dichotomies, and in doing so, reminds us that there are always opposites to consider and choices to make. And in the end, those choices define us, both inwardly and outwardly. Where some would object to this collection as being depressing, I found it to be an affirmation of life, of hard times survived, and still kicking. It explores what I believe are common reactions to common experiences…So what do I mean by all this? Only that these poems are worth a careful read, with heart, mind, and memory open to the pain that life deals us, and a ready recognition that none of us are alone in our struggles.
From the back cover
Newberry's poems arrive like a friend bearing news. We think we are to hear something ordinary, then suddenly it becomes unusual. Or we find ourselves being told something odd . . . and it gets even odder. Newberry is a poet of spiritual surprise, a poet of transcending images pulled from a very real, contemporary, attentive woman's life.—John Balaban, is the author of Locusts At The Edge of Summer and the winner of the Academy of American Poets’ Lamont Prize.
From the Foreword by Michael Arcangelini
I believe I’ve known Martina Reisz Newberry for well over 10 years. Known in that odd way we have become accustomed to these days; without ever having been in the same room together. We became friends over the internet. Initially on a kind of poet’s listserve, then through e-mail, snail mail, and now with social media added to the mix. I have been reading and following her poetry the whole time, and for me the release of a new book of Martina’s work is always an event of note. And so it is with Blues for French Roast with Chicory.
Herein you will find poems in which the sky can break into jigsaw puzzle pieces and fall to the ground, or the setting winter sun apologizes for leaving homeless people still cold, and a skyfull of stars consider their own mortality.These are poems full of magic and ghosts: the corpulent ghost with “a thunderstorm of a smile” in the title poem, and the “great ghosts” of Geodes. Or the magic can be as simple as the transcendence of snow falling expressed by one who’s never seen it fall.
This poet, who touches us with “fingers like song lyrics” and speaks though the “buttered blades of my lips,” has produced another collection of wonders to loose upon the world and for that I am grateful. You will be, too.
—Michael J. Arcangelini is the author of two books of poetry, With Fingers At the Tips of My Words and Room Enough.