Susan Dion, PhD, author of Write Now: Maintaining a Creative Spirit While Homebound and Ill (Puffin Foundation Supported), October 2006. Ms. Dion wrote two reviews of Sarah’s Garden, one for CFA (CFIDS- Fibromyalgia Alliance), Bardonia, NY, and one to National CFIDS Foundation, Needham, MA. Book Review: Tara Allan, Sarah’s Garden
Book Review: Tara Allan, Sarah’s Gardenby Susan Dion
I have walked and wandered through Sarah’s Garden only to come back and sit awhile mesmerized by honeysuckle and magnolia. Tara Allan Stewart’s poems are wondrous and delicate – powerful and tender – mysterious and honest. Each poem touches the reader in unexpected ways: Sometimes my words fall/ like shards of stained glass/ slicing pages until they bleed/ from hidden arteries. (page 31)
Directly and obliquely, Tara Allan Stewart confronts the illness experience in many of her poems, including: “Dancing (a CFIDS Memorial),” “Saturday on Spring Street,” and “Spider.” Her poetry cannot be easily categorized, however. Tara Allan Stewart’s spirit, grace, and wisdom offer a potent medicine not only to those struggling with CFIDS, FM, and other illnesses but to those who are free of serious health troubles. Her multiple gifts to the reader are exemplified in “Blessing.”
BlessingI bless this morning
with a sign –
not of defeat
but awe and honor
that still the sun
rises
in my bedroom
and sets
in the bay window
casting long amber shadows
across the floor.
I do not rise or set
like the sun,
but pay my respects
with silence.
Book Review: Tara Allan, Sarah’s Gardenby Susan Dion
Poet Tara Allan Stewart has been honored with numerous awards. Her prose and poems have appeared in state, national, and international magazines and books. In 1993 she edited the anthology Shadow and Light, a collection of poems on the CFIDS experience written by a diverse group of patients. Tara Allan Stewart has remained a strong advocate, despite severe limitations.
Sarah’s Garden is Tara’s latest volume of poems. The book provides a slow hypnotizing walk through a garden – a garden which has many magical quiet corners to rest and ponder. Tara Allan Stewart’s poems are delicate yet powerful, tender yet sometimes brutal, and painful yet ultimately hopeful. The beauty, darkness, and fragility of this wondrous garden offer many gifts to the reader. The words touch and transform.
To order, check your local bookstore, go to Amazon.com, or call Xlibris at 1.888.795.4272.
Not TodayI survive another night,
awaken to another morning.
I know the sun is shining
but my curtains are closed,
my room shielded in darkness.
I feel safe in shadows,
safe in solitude,
safe from the judgment of the sun.
I will try again
to stand against this disease
(my most deceptive enemy;
my closest companion)
but not today.
The sun is too bright, too telling,
too aware of the stains of despair
left on last night’s darkness.
Tara Allan Stewart
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Susan Dion Write Now