NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

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CATHLEEN CALBERT: DEATH POEMS
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This page last updated: 10th December 2007. 		CATHLEEN CALBERT: DEATH POEMS

Calbert, Professor of English, with various national awards for poetry, provides five poems on Death in this 8-page chapbook. The longest is LIFE AND DEATH, spreading five pages. This is mainly a double-column poem with comments on life and death, respectively, in each column. Some parts are too simple to perk the brain, such as

	Live in glory!
		Die in pain
or technically ribald:
	Listen to the hole in your heart,
		It's the wind calling you home.
I fear I obtained very little poetic meat from such statements as
	A lemon meringue pie
	means you will not die!
In fact in parts, this poem was non-appealing to me although I am prepared to give it better marks read as a whole.

The other shorter poems are DEATH TAKES A NAP,DEATH'S TURN-ONS, DEATH'S TURN-OFFS, and DEATH READS POETRY. I could not connect much with any of these, but the reader may have better luck, so I quote a part of DEATH TAKES A NAP, in which a life side, or an optimistic stance is emphasised or intended:

	Look, there's your perverted dachshund.
	The car sails by, chrome-plated, complete. 

	Your dad watches the moon-landing
	but doesn't pour himself another drink.

	Your mother isn't wailing over his body.
	His third wife doesn't pull her away.

reviewer: Eric Ratcliffe.