Review by:
Dusty Dog Reviews – “Small Press Magazine,” Numbers 14 & 15, 1993
David Castleman, reviewer – Mill Valley, California
John Pierce, publisher/editor – Gallup, New Mexico

Stained Glass

chapbook by Tara Allan

Tara Allan, STAINED GLASS; New Spirit, 82-34 138 St. 6F, Kew Gardens, NY 11435; 24pps, $4

"I believed I saw angels in swirls and dancing lights/before my eyes./1 did not know/about diseases of the brain/that crush hopes and bones/into swirling sand,/swirls like angels/dancing before my eyes."

This poetry is as refreshing and as pleasing to the mind as some oddly graceful and beautiful women are to the palate. Everywhere is an absence of the perceptibly gross, and everywhere is a presence of the light, of grace. The tone is just a wee bit sweet, like a superb Gewurztraminer on a warm evening, or an iced tea earlier on that same day as the sun was punishing the earthly children of its flaming loins.

"The surface of the sea/lies aquamarine/in the moonlight./ Beneath/is silence,/floating peace,/dreams of home./When despair covers hope,/and the serpent's body blocks the sun,/I will remember the sea/turning shattered glass/into sand."

This woman is possessed of a dark wisdom and a dark insight that is shut from the common eyes of women and men. Perhaps it is a blessing that she has it, and certainly it is a blessing that the others do not,

The constant emotional and perceptual reference is to Emily Dickinson, whom in my own mind I always refer to as Saint Emily, and their poetry has a might resemblance in its air of a genuine solitariness. Dark is the substance in the message, and finally unhappy.

"When I die,/give me wings of freedom,/if only for a moment,/so I can climb a tree/and run along the beach/before the wind carries me away."

DUSTY DOG REVIEW Numbers 14 & 15