A Daily Glance
Barbara Jane Reyes’ Easter Sunday is ultimately a chant by a strong presence. This chapbook is sensual, playful, accusatory, and personal, but behind it, the presence is certain and strong. I’m not sure why this strikes me so much, except that I don’t see it that often. With Reyes, I just want to sit back and watch, to experience, without necessarily engaging the book in conversation.
Barbara Jane Reyes’ Easter Sunday is ultimately a chant by a strong presence. This chapbook is sensual, playful, accusatory, and personal, but behind it, the presence is certain and strong. I’m not sure why this strikes me so much, except that I don’t see it that often. With Reyes, I just want to sit back and watch, to experience, without necessarily engaging the book in conversation.
In this collection, she mixes opaque pieces with very clear lyrics. For instance, in the first piece we get a daughter’s experience with an aging father, but in “sonnet, because you asked what shade of orange i see,” we get a list of orange things, like “high terror alert/manila mango napalm fire.” This sonnet plays with the idea of a sonnet, replacing a narrative with a turn with a list, with a collection of images. Perhaps this line from “In the City, a Broken Deity Speaks to Her” could act to sum up much of the chapbook: “Poems tumble out of me; starting with the roots, I tell my life in discontinuous extended meditation.”
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