Margaret Ray

There's a lot to like about this collection of poems by Margaret Ray. She approaches interesting topics I never expected to read in a poem like: "Getting Your Period at the Water Park," eating placenta, and Eve getting a divorce. However, those were not my favorites. I was wowed by the metaphor and simile poems: "Grief is a Sudden Room," and "The Clearing" in which happiness is like a half-tamed deer. I also enjoyed the creative approaches in "Expulsion Lessons but Replace the Garden with a Swamp" with its ah-ha ending; "Tourist" with its great opening; and "Transmission Received from Penelope in Deep Space," creating the experience of difficult communication through blank space.
Though an alter-ego Particle Physicist named Wanda appeals to me, the poems and the way they were sectioned off made me feel that they belonged in a different collection.
I'm very glad I read the poems before I read the foreword because I thought it took away from the work.
I liked the use of the meteorological symbol for a thunderstorm, but with the amount it was used, I wanted it explained at the beginning, or in a poem, and had looked it up online before I found it explained at the end. Having that note at the beginning when the symbol first appears would connect it more to the poems.
Though this is a collection of poems that, to me, did not sound better read aloud, it's a collection one can return to and enjoy again and again for its daring, creativity and wit.… (más)

Margaret Ray's collection of poetry is a rich exercise in dichotomies. From poem to poem, you go from abstract to literal, imaginary to very real, broken to renewed, high-concept to casual, and even traditional classical to modern. Out of context, it could seem like a disparate collection of works, but under the umbrella of the title, "Good Grief, the Ground" it becomes a thing of true human beauty. It is a deceivingly quick read, but carve out the the time to re-read each piece because more often than not, the simplest-looking line has much deeper meaning than at first thought.… (más)