SAINT PINK by MARY KASIMOR

EILEEN TABIOS Engages

Saint Pink by Mary Kasimor

(Moria Books, Chicago, 2015)

There are many lovely effects in Mary Kasimor’s Saint Pink, but what I first noticed is how her poems give a lesson on how to effectively fragment words.  For example, there’s “ignor / ed” within the lines of “tuba arrangement”—

in this body that I ignor

ed     embroidered Red    be

—where the significance of “ignor / ed” is emphasized as first a present tense and then a past tense—one ignores something/one and moves on.  Another example occurs in the next line for “be / tween” —

ed     embroidered Red    be

tween  my fingers

—where the “be” is a general situation that becomes specific (and thus more pointed) when clarified by “tween” for “between.”

And here’s another fine example in “holding onto medusa”:

absenc

e

Of course you get it: the absent “e.”

The visual play and the delicacy or fragility of many of Kasimor’s poems make me consider “meteorite fields hold the horizon” to be a de facto ars poetica for the book; the poem’s observance of its world presents many details but the fragmentation and dislocation (scumbling? -to use a painterly term) of its words seem to highlight the interconnection of all things, but also the fragility of connections. Here’s an excerpt:

(click to enlarge)

All in all, Saint Pink is intelligently, beautifully, and lovingly crafted. Let me leave you with one such example, which also shows Kasimor’s skill at fine (well-considered) pacing:

(click to enlarge)

Saint Pink’s poems deserve a wide readership. And those taking me up on my recommendation to read this book are sure to be rewarded.

*****

Eileen Tabios does not let her books be reviewed by Galatea Resurrects because she's its editor (the exception would be books that focus on other poets as well).  She is pleased, though, to point you elsewhere to recent reviews of her work: THE CONNOISSEUR OF ALLEYS was reviewed by Marthe Reed for The Volta Blog and Grady Harp for Amazon;  INVENT(ST)ORY was reviewed by  Neil Leadbeater in The Halo-Halo Review Mangozine #2; Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole was reviewed by Monica Manolachi in The Halo-Halo Review Mangozine #2; Footnotes to Algebra was reviewed by Chris Mansel in The Halo-Halo Review Mangozine #2; and SILK EGG was reviewed by Aileen Ibardaloza in Goodreads.