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A Slow Archive: Poems
A Slow Archive is a deeply personal work of grief before loss, or what the Portuguese call saudade. Written over the course of a year beginning in May 2014 when his wife Pam was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, A Slow Archive is a three-part poem-diary, an exploration and expression of the role of the lover and care worker in the dying process; an attempt to orient past, present, and future selves amidst encounters with sickness, grief, loneliness and death; and a conversation between, and confession by, two lovers approaching loss at an early age.
- GenresPoetry
38 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 30, 2015
This was received for an honest review.
A Slow Archive is a chapbook of micro poems. I had just read this after reading some Sonia Sanchez and I think Josh may have read some too.
With a backdrop of sterile minimalist prose and haiku, with sparse drawings that remind me of the brief blips of life and the music of an album called flumina by Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto, A Slow Archive is exactly what the title is, a self examination and meditation of life’s brevity. With the smallest words comes the largest loads of melancholy unveiled, losing someone or almost losing someone, is like losing a limb or having one get weakened and you never forget them or lose them entirely as they become the phantoms limbs that hang on to you.
With nature, which is one of the most common use of imagery in here, you see a repetitive cycle of life and death, wilting and sometimes recovering and becoming green. It’s a lot like our lives, we grow as a sprout and then we continue on growing with the right nutrients, but one misstep can bend our stems permanently and slowly, bit by bit, we degenerate. Our love and our care can be the cure, but it only soothes. And there’s nothing worse than realizing how temporary we are.
Rating: 4.5/5
Notes on the Shore
A Slow Archive is a chapbook of micro poems. I had just read this after reading some Sonia Sanchez and I think Josh may have read some too.
With a backdrop of sterile minimalist prose and haiku, with sparse drawings that remind me of the brief blips of life and the music of an album called flumina by Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto, A Slow Archive is exactly what the title is, a self examination and meditation of life’s brevity. With the smallest words comes the largest loads of melancholy unveiled, losing someone or almost losing someone, is like losing a limb or having one get weakened and you never forget them or lose them entirely as they become the phantoms limbs that hang on to you.
With nature, which is one of the most common use of imagery in here, you see a repetitive cycle of life and death, wilting and sometimes recovering and becoming green. It’s a lot like our lives, we grow as a sprout and then we continue on growing with the right nutrients, but one misstep can bend our stems permanently and slowly, bit by bit, we degenerate. Our love and our care can be the cure, but it only soothes. And there’s nothing worse than realizing how temporary we are.
Rating: 4.5/5
Notes on the Shore
January 29, 2016
Please be advised that I am 100% biased because he's a former colleague and a friend.
There's so much beauty and grief in these poems...it's hard for me to say more than that.
There's so much beauty and grief in these poems...it's hard for me to say more than that.
June 23, 2016
tender and heartbreaking
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews