Kate Hall
Review
Marianne Bluger
Zen Mercies / Small Satoris by Marianne Bluger. Penumbra Press, Canada. www.penumbrapress.com
I enjoyed reading many of the tanka in this nicely produced book, generally they were unsentimental and yet often caught that moment when the writer felt something , not necessarily an earth shattering feeling but a feeling none the less. It was this simplicity that I found easy to respond to.
With melting flakes
still spangling his parka
he lies down
by my side on the hospital bed
& I am home
In Zen Mercies / Small Satoris the author relates to often difficult or painful moments of her life. It is this intimacy coupled with simplicity that can be inspirational. On her father’s death she writes:
Water
just water – these tears
in the rain
the earth is turning
green
Like most collections there were some weak tanka. Some seemed to me to be purely observational, short line prose. However I still felt that I had been taken on a journey through Marianne Bluger’s life, her father’s death, her preoccupations and her struggle with cancer.
I was feeling sad when I opened this book, this was the first tanka I read:
Real
as a dream
the beetle
shimmering – green
on my upturned palm
Which may not be the most profound tanka I have ever read but it certainly made me smile.
Page(s) 66
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The