Lizard Season

by Norah Pollard

Norah Pollard sings movingly of loss and love punctuated with bursts of wit. She is a beautiful storyteller, eloquent and above all--best of all--she doesn't flinch from the truths of her life. Her poems are compassionate, wise and unflinching. Christie Max Williams writes,"In Lizard Season , as in all her earlier work, Norah Pollard's voice is accessible, generous, and above all, trustworthy. It's a direct, irreverent, muscular voice - a Yankee's voice. The stories contained in these new poems are so consistently and impressively compelling, and so wonderful in their narrative and emotional range, as to achieve a worldly, universal appeal and power. Many are from the poet's own life, but many others give insightful glimpses into the lives of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary moments. These stories are often funny. And like ancient fables, they deliver epiphanies of authentic emotional wisdom. Pollard also consistently enriches her tales with gem-like turns of phrase, some of them deeply memorable and true -- 'You don't know a man until you see / the compass of his compassion.' Pollard has long been known as one of New England's best poets. With Lizard Season , it may be time to reckon her one of America's best poets."

140 pages, Paperback

Published April 2, 2018

Reviews

[Thomas McDade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goethe says, “The Poet must know how to hate.” By which he means, I (Norah Pollard) believe, that the poet must be able to feel every emotion.

Of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric; of our conflicts with ourselves we make poetry. – W.B. Yeats

Lizard Season, is sectioned into six parts that are flagged by signposts signaling a life lived authentically and examined well. These are not teases. The poet does not disappoint or hedge. They wield the weight of the words in the acknowledgement and the epigraph and honestly introduce the poems of craft and power to follow.

In the Beginning

Losings
…I’d kneel over the
Lost & Found section to read the words in those
black-bordered boxes—little coffins for each dearly
departed thing….

All Kinds

The Silence After
“They’re reporting—indecently—that he had
made eye contact with the engineer
before he stepped on the tracks.”

Other Nations

“The moth was beautiful
lying with its wings spread,
fixed on the water in the cat’s bowl.
I thought him dead and slipped
a teabag under him
and lay the moth on the tag
on the sill to dry. I thought I might later
tack him beside my photo of Churchill.”

Brother Mine

The Road
By sundown you’ll hear the highway clearly.
The town goes quiet and you catch the whoosh
and sissing like ocean waves, of those
big wheels rolling through the night.
The diesel’s strain and groan on the grade.

Confessions and Disclosures

Reflections on Beauty
“The lights’ reflections on the harbor waters
lie like silver streaks in an old mirror.
From the great smokestacks, long scarves
of white smoke ghost up into the darkness.
This is a place where gods would live.”

Towards an End

Rue Moon
“All those I’ve cherished are now bones,
hides, dusky feathers, husks,
stars with paling eyes.”

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the variety of her poetry. I could relate to some of it as well.