Sound Effects

by Nina Bennett

Poetry

Genres: Poetry

34 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Nina Bennett is a healthcare professional with a subspecialty in bereavement issues and secondary traumatic stress. Her chapbook, Sound Effects, was published in 2013 by Broadkill Press as part of their Key Poetry Series. Nina's poem "Deja Vu" took third place in the Out & About magazine poetry contest, and her poem "They Do" was nominated for 2012 Best of the Net. "Searching for Grandma's Childhood Home" won the 2014 Northern Liberties Review Poetry Prize. "Do Over" is a finalist for the 2019 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize.

Her articles and poetry have appeared in numerous print and online journals and anthologies. Nina is a contributing author to the Open to Hope Foundation.

The House of Yearning, a poetry chapbook published by Kelsay Books, is available through their website, as well as Amazon.

Nina's chapbook, Mix Tape, was published by Flutter Press in 2018. Nina has copies available, and the chap is also available on Amazon.



Five Bridges won 2cnd place in the creative writing/poetry book category in the 2014 Delaware Press Association Communications contest.

Proceeds from Nina's book, Forgotten Tears, are donated to agencies dedicated to supporting bereaved families.

Reader comments:
An amazing resource for bereaved grandparents, but also for anyone touched by the death of a child….the bibliography in itself is worth a zillion!
Kara Jones, Editor, A Different Kind of Parenting

Thank you so much for writing this lovely book. It is like you have a window into my soul.
Toni, bereaved grandmother

A great addition to the library of grief books
Betty Ewart, Editor, A Journey Together
national newsletter of Bereaved Parents USA

Reviews

[Jenna]

The chapbook Sound Effects gives us poet Nina Bennett’s grandmother’s-eye view of the world, leavened by experiences of loss, bereavement, and grief, but also effervescing with a 1960s-music-steeped nostalgia for the happier, putatively more innocent America of her younger years. Sexuality in these poems is often rendered through the perspective of a blushing, giggling, quintessentially girlish young woman awaking to her own potential as a sexual being: “high school dates ending / in awkward kisses full of promises / unkept” (“State Theater on Main Street”); “I want a sash to show off my slender waist, / and long sleeves to hide my skinny arms” (“Leap Year”); “my dreams now filled / with an ill-defined and unfamiliar longing / to be loved by the Marlboro Man” (“Changeling Summer”). There is a sort of aura of perpetual adolescence, of unbreakable eternal innocence, shining through these poems that is admittedly alluring; you can’t help but envy the speaker her blissful childhood when reading the poem “Plethora of Friends,” which begins, “Summer days lined up like gifts. / Fathers blew kisses as they slung briefcases / into cars. Mothers in muu-muus / scrubbed floors, polished silver….”

In light of this, it should come as no surprise that one of this poet’s greatest strengths is her keen-eyed portrayal of child and teen behavior, particularly boy behavior, in poems like “The Boy King” and “Mt. Tibidabo”: “I arrange a family photo…. My brother’s hands / in his pockets, right foot extended / for a quick getaway….”

This tendency to affectionately center the foibles of youth makes Bennett’s depiction of the travails of aging all the more striking. In “Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix,” the speaker feels herself to be young as she “hold[s] a pair of turquoise earrings / to [her] ear, see[s] them sway / as [she] dance[s] to sixties rock”; she is subsequently shocked to hear a stranger address her as ma’am: “When he says sorrry ma’am / I look over my shoulder / for my mother.” The poem “Any Diner, Any Town” may at first glance seem like an insignificant anecdote about a waitress forgetting her duties to flirt with a male customer, but it takes on greater significance when viewed in the context of the whole chapbook: then it becomes a tremendously sad poem about how women frequently become invisible — even to other women! — as they grow older.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know how writing teachers are always telling you to describe the impressions of all five senses, not just vision? Nina Bennett is so aurally attuned that I imagine no one ever had to remind her to describe how things sound as much as how they look. Nor do the other senses suffer any lack in "Sound Effects": "...he strokes the strings/with the same caress he uses on me./ ...His left hand rests on my belly as we sleep,/ fingers curved in a B flat minor diminished."

I loved the tartness of Bennett's wry wit. In "The Boy King," she takes her grandson to the King Tut exhibit, where "[h]e snorts when we read/that Tut may have married/his sister." When his sister later "threatens to kick him in the nuts" for smugness during a monopoly game, grandma tells him "Be glad you don't live in ancient Egypt."

"Any Diner, Any Town," captures the near-universal experience of a middle-aged woman ignored by a waitress who is overly solicitous of a male customer. "Before I've finished eating/ she places the check silently/ on the corner of the table,/ left hand fluffing out her hair/ as she glides across to the window/ and asks if he wants tabasco for his eggs."

Another of my favorite poems in the book depicts being trapped on an airplane with two toddlers from hell:

The fledgling terrorist
sits behind me, those pink crocs
drumming a steady beat across
the Atlantic. If I slide my hand
down the side of my window seat,
I could snap that tiny tibia in half.

Bennett is a healthcare professional with a subspecialty in bereavement issues. She is an experienced author, but this is her first poetry chapbook. There are a lot of poems about loss in this debut, but Bennett writes with such humor, beauty and music that you'll feel you've gained much by reading.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nina Bennett deals in loss and memories threaded with the sound effects of music. The music of youth, of love, of times past. Loss through death, and divorce, the loss of youth, of our unclouded way of looking at the future. All this loss might make for dreary reading except that these poems are so wound with love they light our way.

Bennett is a keen observer of life around her, especially as she guides us through airports—Waiting for my Flight to New Orleans; Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix; International Terminal A-West, Philly.

The poignancy of My Sister’s Bracelet stopped me in my tracks.

Hugged tight to my thin wrist,
the silver cuff outlast
two wedding bands and the grubby
hands of three grandchildren.

I was similarly affected by Devolution of a Marriage, when the former partners pass each other, silently and politely on the way to the now-divided refrigerator.

And through it all there is the music, always the music.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In just 28 poems, Bennett covers life at its best and worst, from emerald green silk dresses, rock bands, King Tut exhibits, and Nancy Drew to divorce and the AIDS epidemic. With an economy of words (often half a page), her poems deliver the maximum impact. Brevity and accessibility are the soul of her writing.

It’s not surprising that many poems contain sorrow and loss, favorite topics of poets. However, Bennett is a healthcare professional who works in bereavement and trauma. She understands that, professional or not, no one is immune to those times when a wail “reverberates/ like the screech of a trapped rabbit/summoning others to its rescue.” Acknowledge the pain, feel the catharsis, turn the page, and move on to a lighter poem. Life is a balancing act, so is good poetry.

Since I’m of her generation, Bennett’s poems also carry me back to my own childhood and the music of my youth. Remembering the Beatles, Steppenwolf, Donovan, and Judy Collins can be as good medicine as laughter. Bennett delivers laughter, too, but I won’t spoil her punch lines to “The Boy King” and “Daybreak.” You’ll want to read this chapbook yourself.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sound Effects is a wonderful little chapbook of poems that are accessible and a joy to read. Here is an example:

Leap Year

If I ask you to marry me and you refuse,
you have to buy me a silk dress,
according to ancient Scottish law.
A silk dress might be nice. I'd like
mine to be emerald, to match my eyes.
I want a sash to show off my slender waist,
and long sleeves to hide my skinny arms.
The skirt should be full so it will swirl
about my legs as I walk. If you feel angst
over turning me down, you could buy
high heels to match my dress.

[Julene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nina and I were in a poetry critique group together years ago, I am a fan of her writing. The title, Sound Effects, captures the essence of how she experiences life through music and sounds. Her work is infused with auditory memories, songs, the dialogue from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the sound checks of a band tuning up to play. Full of touching moments this is a book of memories, losses, smalls joys remembered and the promise of love that continues despite what life throws at us.

[Jawanza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This chapbook is short and sweet. Most of the poems reminisce on people and places dear to the author’s personal history. They are contemplative, courageous and well-crafted. They are also full of surprises and gentle humor. Many of the poems reminded me of the work of Diane Lockward and Barbara Crooker, who I also like. Recommended.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bennett’s poetry focuses on incidences of daily life—visiting a museum with a grandson, sitting in a diner, a historic movie theater, anniversaries, deaths, the loss of an infant, the music of the Sixties: John Lennon, Paul Simon, Judy Collins, Donovan.
Her language is immediate and authentic; the poet holding an intimate yet quietly intense conversation with the reader. She references childhood books: Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, role models of a sort—the girl detective, the student nurse. Their enviable lives never having “to go home when the streetlights come on.”
Benmett sculps recognizable scenes with an often sardonic and pointed chisel.

“International Terminal A-West, Philly” portrays an irritating toddler who, of course, is seated behind the poet.

You know what is coming.
The fledgling terrorist
sits behind me, those pink crocs
drumming a steady beat across
the Atlantic. If I slide my hand
down the side of my window seat,
I could snap that tiny tibia in half.


“Daybreak” paints a sensuous picture “softened with first light as if/a watercolor brush slid across the sky.” Then jabs it with the couplet “Oh Christ, not another poem/about a beautiful sunrise.”

“Waiting For My Flight to New Orleans” focuses on a fellow passenger returning from a hunting trip where he
“shoots and skins the rodents
gives them to his uncle to eat.” with his occupation as a surgical nurse who
“selects a scalpel
with the same precision he uses/to sight down his rifle”.

In “Whiter Shade of Pale” the poet
“sorting through boxes/in her mother’s attic
she discovers wrinkled
photographs stuck together after
forty years, wedding dress faded/from lime to celery. March wind
whistles cold through gaps in insulation
mimicking the bridge/of a long-forgotten song.”

This is a book to savor with poignant poems of the loss of a grandchild at birth offset by an ironic cautioning of a misbehaving grandson “Be glad you don’t live in ancient Egypt.”

All of the poems in “Sound Effects” were previously published in Broadkill Review which selected this ms. for their Key Poetry Series. A founding member of the Trans Canal Writers, Bennett is the author of “Forgotten Tears: A Grandmother’s Journey Through Grief.” Her poems have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies,.