Broke

by Joan Colby

The poems in Joan Colby’s chapbook BROKE were engendered by an accident in which several of the author’s bones were broken. This led her to contemplate aspects of the word “broke.” Due to a badly fractured wrist, the poems were laboriously printed with the non-dominant hand, which captures how the fact of brokenness, like the word itself, insinuates both damage and repair. Ironically, X rays of the tension-wire hardware used to secure Colby’s shattered kneecap were eerily identical to the symbol for extinction shown on the chapbook’s cover.

Genres: Poetry

34 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 2015

Reviews

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

After an accident which left Colby’s wrist severely fractured, she pondered the word “broke,” resulting in a marvelous chapbook of poems that explore breaking and brokenness from a variety of perspectives. The chapbook consists of 33 poems, without titles. The contents page lists each poem by its first line. This juxtaposes the brokenness with a sense of continuity.

Colby is known for her wonderful images, metaphors and similes. Her word choices are precise and evocative. “Bones blossoming with the/ chrysanthemums of fracture” describes a broken hip. A beach scene begins with “The sun broke through the clouds/ and day was conceivable, /magenta hemmed in gold.” In talking about the Liberty Bell, Colby describes a physical break, and segues into a broad metaphorical one.
First strike of the clapper
cracked the rim. Omen of the split
defined by Jefferson and Adams
widening into a civil war.

Colby’s wow factor increases with the final line of the final poem, which echoes a symbol on the incredible cover artwork. The poem, on the surface, describes treatment for a broken kneecap.
The X ray shows
a figure eight within a square-
the symbol for extinction.

[Donald Armfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Broke” is a chapbook of interlocking pieces of broken fragments, written with the non-dominant hand during the healing process of a broken bone. Colby’s poetry is far from broke and could heal the broken with just a single stanza.

Page favorites; 8, 9, 14, 21, 25, 29

[FutureCycle Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:


She vacates the car.
Party over, alone after midnight
on a forsaken road
she doesn’t recognize.

She just remembers
how he took off with some ex-girlfriend
as she chugged jello shots and smoked
enough dope to silk her mood.

In the rain, she staggers
to the one farmhouse
visible in arc-light,
an ark of safety, a porch
with a swing and hanging baskets
of dark foliage.

She bangs on the screen door
until a heavy shape fills the doorframe,
opening her mouth on words
as he levels the shotgun and fires,
full in her face, then sees

it’s just a girl collapsing like the
drenched flowers, his mind whirling
with stories of home invasions, how
you must protect your property,
a constitutional right—
like the gun.

The night blurs with rain.
What was it she yelled
in that singular instant. Broke down.
Something broke.


—


Omen of mortality:
broken hip. Maybe a fall
or simply turning in the bed.
Bones blossoming with the
chrysanthemums of fracture.

The rotting plantation of advanced age.
All the servants absconding
with the silver. Femur failing to knit.
Broken as a window
that once shone with resolve.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book of poems would be great for a literature class or group interpretation group – a lot of meaty, deep, thinking’s, thoughts are related in the poems. As a casual reader of poems --- each one should have had a title of some sort or other and they were mostly all very depressing. I couldn’t figure out what the cover of the book except maybe dead trees, snails, frogs of some sort or other --- and, no where did it mention that the book was written while a person was recovering from a serious accident ---- a very depressing read.