The Space between Memory and Hope : A review of Backyard Cosmos

their own spuddish devices" and the "carrots and broccoli sulk", or the feminist anger of the biblical "Mary" as she throws off her daggy clothes and tosses her halo 'like a frisbee', or even in the anger at death in "the desperation poem": 'Moloch muse!/I suppose you also demand a poem', or the drama queen of the full moon, "star troupe in train". This works best when mingling with the profound as in the final poem "backyard cosmos" where the poet paddles in her swimming pool where stars have fallen: 'Better plunge up to my neck in it,/paddle off in the cosmic soup, whisking up galaxies,/keeping my head above water.'

The Haiku are simple, as Haiku are, and set around the seasons, but still yielding the magic moment of shared understanding. There are a few rare poems which work less, like "voyager", "song for Lucy" and "threefold", where the imagery is still rich, but perhaps too personal to make the transition to profound. However, overall this is a wonderful little book, full of poetry to make you shiver; poetry which keeps revealing more on the re-reading, which combines freshness with intensity. Something rare. In Loftus' own words:

Lovers and others take note:
there is absolutely nothing
to be deduced from any of this -
no pie-in-the-sky.
No soothsaying, no wisdom.

Only the ecstasy.

Backyard Cosmos
By Robin Loftus
Published by Catchfire Press
December 2000
ISBN 0 9577330 2 X
Genre: Poetry

About the Reviewer:

Magdalena Ball is Editor of The Compulsive Reader at http://www.compulsivereader.com/html, and is the author of two books, The Literary Lunch: Recipes for a Hungry Mind, and The Art of Assessment: How to Review Anything. Her fiction, poetry, reviews, interviews, and essays have appeared in a wide range of on-line and print publications.

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