Blue and Red Things

by Laura Solomon

Poetry. "In her second collection, BLUE AND RED THINGS, Laura Solomon discovers what the wizards of the world have always known and hid under large rocks. Solomon bravely takes these things out from under the rocks, displays them for us in her large poetic voice, and begs us to listen to them, lest we forget them altogether. By doing so, she makes of the world little more than a changeling and as beautifully icy and as gloriously conscious of itself as the life it supports. Like ghosts, these poems will reinvent themselves in your soul each time you read them. Like objects from the other world, these blue and red things will help us all re-envision what little we know of life and death. If you miss this book, you will miss something you will need throughout your life and will be forever sorry and never replete"--Dorothea Lasky.

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Laura Solomon is the author of Bivouac (Slope Editions, 2002) and Blue and Red Things (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007) and The Hermit (UDP, 2011). Other publications include the chapbook Letters by which Sisters Will Know Brothers (Katalanche Press, 2005) and Haiku des Pierres / Haiku of Stones by Jacques Poullaouec, translated from the French with Sika Fakambi (Apogée Press, 2006).

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perspective in Blue and Red Things

Laura Solomon’s book of poetry, Blue and Red Things focuses on classic themes of life, death, and legacy from different perspectives. Her poems question how the value of these fundamentals change depending on the perspective they are viewed from. The last three lines of the epigraph set up the uncertainty that her poems will expand upon;

are you sister? are you brother?
are you alive?
are you dead?

--H. D. Helen in Egypt

The title of the first poem, First Banshee works with the juxtapositions that the book will explore. A banshee is an omen of death or messenger from the underworld, but “first” has a connotation that evokes life. The adjective first implies that there will be more of whatever noun it describes. If there were not more following, it would be the “only banshee”. This omen of death is also the Adam of his clan. This banshee will be followed by more. The Banshee in this poem does not only have the finality of death, it also has the promise of life.
“It comes out of arson / bearing aprons of berries.” The first two lines also play with the reader’s viewpoint. Fire is one of nature’s most violent tools of death. Forest fires can kill everything in their path, resulting in 100’s of acres of destruction. The next line of the poem gives a new perspective on the voracious death that is arson. Arson comes “bearing aprons of berries.” “Bearing aprons” is a phrase rich with maternal connotations. To bear, evokes thoughts of bearing children, instead of simply bearing a weight or a lode. Aprons are a traditional symbol of motherhood. The image of the domestic homemaker taking care of her brood of children wearing a checkered apron is an image that Americas identify with like a Norman Rockwell print. The image of death becomes the mother to life. Berries are one of the first plants to grow back after fire devastates an area. If seen from the prospective of the trees, arson is the ultimate death, but when seen from the view of the life that is able to spring up after, arson is life.
The poems Boots Made of Steel and Notes to the Music are on opposing pages. The juxtaposition of theses poems examines life, death, and legacy form two different poems. Boots Made of Steel examines the need of many men to leave their mark on the world before they pass from it.

I will stomp
through the forest
so that even the very
tops of the trees can hear me.

The image presented by this stanza is one of a man (or woman) using man-made implements to demonstrate dominance of nature. His footprints are enhanced by the tool of the boots which are made into a more affective tool by steel. Steel is nature distilled to a high level. The ores of the earth are taken from nature, refined, and combined to create a material that more affectively imposes its will on nature. The man in this stanza wants the “tops of the trees” to hear his voice, he wants uncaring nature to notice his life. The poem ends with the voice possessing a more desperate tone. He is hoping that snow, a classic image of death, won’t erase the footprints he has made on the world.

After Boots Made of Steel shows issues of life and legacy from the perspective of men acting upon nature, Notes to the Music looks at the same issues when nature is acting upon a man. This poem is about men who seem to have been shipwrecked and washed onto an island. The men have been injured and nature seems to be in control. Nature is presented as pristine, “Even the sky chirped—and a blue-headed sea,” while the men are “bleeding” and nature is uprooting their place; “The dunegrass shooting up from out your feet.” All of the control that man had is gone, something is close enough to be chewing at the men’s lips, but yet the men are not able to identify it.
Legacy has been one of man’s most important considerations from the beginning of time. People only have a short time to prove to the world that they were there. Language has become the most affective tool to attain immortality. Great warriors and great beauties have been recorded in words for future generations. From the prospective of nature, language and words don’t have the power of immortality that they have to humans.
On the tips of our tongues
though by then there were no tips,
no tongues,
no lips or words to speak of.
From the perspective of nature the human viewpoint is small. Boots Made of Steel shows this visually when compared to Notes to the Music. The former is only eight lines long while the latter spans ten pages. From man’s perspective the world is something that has to be fought in order to survive. Nature enjoys a much broader view that can see life and death as a cycle and the life of one individual or one species as irrelevant. The struggle of men for immortality and legacy through words is reduced to the hum of music by nature. “Think of the words of the poem/ as notes to the music.”
Life, death and legacy are issues that are important to every person. Laura Solomon explores these issues from different perspectives to reveal the issues to be less important then everyday people see them. From nature’s perspective, life and death are the same thing.

[Frank Karioris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evening reading is for Proust; either to read him (maybe) or to let him do the reading. Solomon is upcoming and just read, so no fear.

[Paul Killebrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Watch yourself turn into sand.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a mind-altering substance.