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CRISES AND NATURE MEET
IN In a review for Western American Literature of Perie Longo's first book, Milking the Earth, Charlotte Wright noted that Longo's poems "contain much of importance to women,but many of her poems are based on broader, nature-oriented themes. Even to these, however, she brings a personal viewpoint." In her second book, published eleven years later, Perie Longo has kept her focus and her breadth, and has increased her force. The poems in The Privacy of Wind are of great importance to women, they reaffirm the poet's connection to nature, and they are intensely personal. The more important thing to say about this new collection of honest, hard-hitting work is that it is bravely healing. These poems matter as much as any you'll find between the covers of a book-and not only to women. It is true, though, that womanhood is a strong theme in The Privacy of Wind. Dedicated to the poet's mother and her daughter, this book explores the mother-daughter relationship from both sides. The poems in the book's first part form an almost narrative progression of crises, in which Longo takes us through the decline and fall of her mother; the fall is both literal and symbolic of aging and death. Next comes the poet's daughter's eating disorder, and the poet's reaction to this crisis and a second round of nearly helpless mothering. This section is resolved with a recovery, "a sweet lilt calling mom surfing / the crest of all that commotion." As if to prove that grief and stress must have a breaking point, the next fall is again a literal fall, and a literal break, in which the poet herself experiences danger and pain on a mountaintop: a skiing accident leaves her helpless, her leg in the form of a Z. But the experience gives her a gift as well: the ability, at last, to scream. This scream on a mountaintop is the beginning of her personal journey back from hell. She learns to walk again, and in the process, she heals more than just her leg. As stressful as this material may seem, the book also has its lighter moments, its celebrations of relationships and pleasures and especially of nature. Running throughout this very personal collection is a strongly felt appreciation of the natural world. Whether she's describing a wind-whipped mountaintop, the threatened field behind her house, or a bottle-brush tree outside her bedroom window, Perie Longo reminds us that we live in nature, a mighty force that has its own declines and falls and its own recoveries and triumphs. Poet Perie Longo believes that a poem is a marker, commemorating a time, a place, an experience. Clearly the poems in The Privacy of Wind mark the times, places, and experiences-not only of the poet, but also those belonging to the reader in whom the poems resonate.
About the Author. Perie Longo was born in Cincinnati and raised in Milwaukee. She has worked in Los Angeles and has lived in Santa Barbara since 1969. There she teaches poetry writing privately and is poet-in-residence at several schools and is on the staff of the Santa Barbara Writers' Conference. She is also a psychotherapist and the author of Milking the Earth. Appropriately, Longo's most recent work is not to be read in a book, but out in nature itself. Carved in stone, it commemorates the recently dedicated Douglas Family Preserve (Wilcox Property) in Santa Barbara. It begins, "Here you may walk in peace. / Here you may walk in time and history. / Here you may express an ancient beauty." The poem ends: "Here you may find yourself." |
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The Privacy of Wind 80 pages, 6" x 9", paperback, $10.00 For ordering information, click here or phone (800) 662-8351 |