Always a Blue House Lisa Rizzo 9780996907446 Books
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In Always A Blue House, poet Lisa Rizzo is an unwilling seeker, generous-hearted even in her disbelief, suspended like Chagall's blue angel just inside the window of the infinite. Brilliant travel poems, poignant tracings of her father's decline, and sharp memories of an Illinois childhood round out Rizzo's second collection.
Always a Blue House Lisa Rizzo 9780996907446 Books
Lisa Rizzo is a fine poet, and "Always a Blue House" is a stunning collection. When I read the opening poem, "Blue Angel,"I was hooked. "Blue Angel" is one of several ekphrastic poems in the volume, all of them enchanting. Lisa herself says that the book is about grief, journey and growth. The poems range from reminisces about a Chicago childhood to far-ranging travel poems (Paris, Zanzibar, Lesvos, the Serengeti), from memories of a young marriage to coping with the decline of an aging father. Rizzo knows about the grittiness of life. In her "Juliet and Romeo," she says those young lovers wouldn't have made it; they were only "hot house flowers," when what the world needs is "dandelions or crab grass/in suburban backyard lawns - / those who come up fighting after the mower has passed." And yet she also has the poet’s eye for those moments of beauty, waiting for us, as in “A Paris Apartment” when a purchase of peonies by a fourteen year old leads to these lines: “I have decided/to stop denying/my love of pink,/you declare as you cut/the stems, your deft/young hands full/of petaled promise.” This is a writer capable of carrying us through a vast range of emotions, in clean, simple language. Sit down with this book, and be moved.Product details
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Tags : Always a Blue House [Lisa Rizzo] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In <em>Always A Blue House</em>, poet Lisa Rizzo is an unwilling seeker, generous-hearted even in her disbelief,Lisa Rizzo,Always a Blue House,Saddle Road Press,0996907440,POETRY American General
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Always a Blue House Lisa Rizzo 9780996907446 Books Reviews
Sometimes, later in life, we realize that looking back helps our feet land – now – whenever we might need to jump. Sometimes, reflection is a tool, wrought of the abstract, but solid in our hands. This corporeal tool is what I take from Rizzo’s collection as she faces grief and painful memories, like this one from “Autumn,” “Later in their marriage bed./ he said, I want a divorce./ Promises like stones fell,/ one by one.” Or this. From “Requiem,” “I sing this to you and all/ the lost trees of my life.” These are tender poems, but they are also a plate smashed against a wall after a betrayal. Remembering is a gift, Rizzo reminds us; recording her reflections, Rizzo gives a gift to the world.
In Always a Blue House, Lisa Rizzo’s poems range between the earthbound house of human perception and the limitless plane of soul questions elicited by opening one’s heart to the blue angel of poetry. "I don’t care whether/ She has flown in the window or out” writes Rizzo of Chagall’s angel; what counts here, we learn from this self-stated non-believer, is not so much the direction we take or the events that befall us, but a willingness to continue to risk taking our love-spurned and faith-skeptical selves through internal and external landscapes. Rizzo’s inadvertent reverence comes through in the way she tracks visible “signposts” on pilgrimage in Santiago "Yellow arrows on signposts / pointed the way, each fork in the road / a question with an answer" as well as the hidden presences or givens in the night skies, claiming stars "I know are there / though no one else can see them."
Through Rizzo’s admission, "I too am halved," we drop vicariously into our frailties and take solace in images of hope as when Rizzo observes her niece’s "deft / young hands full / of petaled promise" on a first trip to Paris. Or as we do in the poem Juliet and Romeo in which Rizzo reverses the order of names to recast the lovers and uses Crab-grass and dandelions as metaphors for those who make it "those who come up fighting / after the mower has passed." Rizzo manages to turn a lover’s cruel question, “Why do you follow me everywhere?” into an invitation, in Haiku, to her readers, “Will you follow me?” And we do, falling in love with this fallible seeker, cranky and hot in her body, out of sorts even on pilgrimage to pay her respects to Sappho. She perseveres "I drove on / clutch crabby and grumbling / like an old woman stumbling on gravel," and we love her for it. Traveling solo, she triumphs, in setting after setting, finding sweetness despite sorrow and loss.
Whether she is listening in the depths of the Oregon Caves for what had not yet been unearthed or observing her aging father feed sorrow with sugar, Rizzo’s questions linger "What gifts do I give? Does faith remain when memory is lost?" There is something generous and haunting, ultimately comforting, about the way Rizzo is able to see her father’s childhood inside of him even as he ages, and to gift us the image of her own "childhood…blooming / pink within."
The title for this volume of poetry comes from a Marc Chagall painting in which Lisa Rizzo embraces the dual possibilities of an open window, both entry and exit. These poems collectively present a two-way window for the reader—moving inward (intuition) and moving outward (perspective).
"Temperance" took me inward
Moon's shadow side is blue,
sun side glows orange I too
am halved...
...Before my bones mingle
with earth, may I temper into one.
"Bee Song" led me outward
rolling in pollen
till we clothe our legs
in gold
we sigh and hum
come...
...mingle your hands
in blossoms
crabapple spring
These poems share Rizzo's experiences of geography, art, family, love, aging—blending memoir with travelogue. She carries from each experience a connection with place, using poetry as her camera, photographing inner as well as outer specifics. This book is thus a photo album, specific to Rizzo yet inviting the reader to choose what to carry into personal association. From "Spelunking, Oregon Caves"
...I heard water gurgling,
felt my heart beating. I listened
for what had not yet been unearthed.
What I could carry with me.
This book is an appetizer. You will want more of Rizzo's poems. You will cross your fingers that she will keep journeying, offering more poetic portraits.
My recommendation? Carry Rizzo's poems along on your journey, imagining your encounters through poetic lens.
by Jazz Jaeschke
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Lisa Rizzo is a fine poet, and "Always a Blue House" is a stunning collection. When I read the opening poem, "Blue Angel,"I was hooked. "Blue Angel" is one of several ekphrastic poems in the volume, all of them enchanting. Lisa herself says that the book is about grief, journey and growth. The poems range from reminisces about a Chicago childhood to far-ranging travel poems (Paris, Zanzibar, Lesvos, the Serengeti), from memories of a young marriage to coping with the decline of an aging father. Rizzo knows about the grittiness of life. In her "Juliet and Romeo," she says those young lovers wouldn't have made it; they were only "hot house flowers," when what the world needs is "dandelions or crab grass/in suburban backyard lawns - / those who come up fighting after the mower has passed." And yet she also has the poet’s eye for those moments of beauty, waiting for us, as in “A Paris Apartment” when a purchase of peonies by a fourteen year old leads to these lines “I have decided/to stop denying/my love of pink,/you declare as you cut/the stems, your deft/young hands full/of petaled promise.” This is a writer capable of carrying us through a vast range of emotions, in clean, simple language. Sit down with this book, and be moved.
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