Of Dirt and Tar by June Sylvester Saraceno
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Cherry Grove Collections (2014)
Purchase: @ Amazon.com
Review by April Michelle Bratten
June Sylvester Saraceno’s second full-length collection, Of Dirt and Tar (Cherry Grove Collections 2014), shines light on everyday events with powerful and emotionally charged poetry. A large portion of the work in this book consists of what I like to call “moment poems.” Drawing from familiar settings, Saraceno uses a checkout lane in a grocery store, a car, a waiting room, and a plane trip, among others, to weave significance and importance into these moments. The cumulative result, in this case, was apt, affective, and compelling. Saraceno’s poems teach us that one moment can be complicated and sound. She shows us that these moments are what make us human.
Using crisp, bright imagery, even in moments of darkness, Saraceno tackles the topic of human expression. Of Dirt and Tar wades through moments of guilt, anger, confusion, grief, calm, and joy. In her poem “Persephone’s Shade,” Saraceno takes on several of these emotions in one stretch, highlighting the struggle of duality, of darkness challenging the light, of discovering a much different self:
Sometimes returning to daylight,
to my mother’s soft instruction, her pain,
the world of sunrise, apples, larks…
I could barely stand the ache, the urge
to submerge myself in the dark,
fierce world of his eternal need,
the other self his body made of me.
Darkness is always present, even in moments of light. It creeps along the outskirts of a personality until fully realized and accepted. This was one of my favorite poems from the collection. It demonstrated that one moment of reflection can trigger an entirely new realization of self.
Split into four unique sections, Of Dirt and Tar, at first glance, appears to be an eclectic collection. Each section wears a different style, from adult narrative, to childhood memory, to persona poems, and finally to prosier poems in the final section. However, the overall tone and message of the work sings in harmony. There is an intense wonder, even a certain magic, in being human. In her poem “At a Bazaar,” Saraceno writes:
At one table, a woman talks to a child at her feet
…just lay down…go to sleep. By the time you wake up,
you’ll be home. The girl is curled
on a faux Persian rug rolled over the cement floor.
I look at her tangle of brown hair
and wonder at this simple magic,
her travel from place to place
through the incantation of sleep.
I wonder if I lie down beside her
which home I would wake in.
Of Dirt and Tar contains accessible and rich poems that will leave you learning, or at least wondering, a little more about yourself. In which home will you find yourself waking?
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Cherry Grove Collections (2014)
Purchase: @ Amazon.com
Review by April Michelle Bratten
June Sylvester Saraceno’s second full-length collection, Of Dirt and Tar (Cherry Grove Collections 2014), shines light on everyday events with powerful and emotionally charged poetry. A large portion of the work in this book consists of what I like to call “moment poems.” Drawing from familiar settings, Saraceno uses a checkout lane in a grocery store, a car, a waiting room, and a plane trip, among others, to weave significance and importance into these moments. The cumulative result, in this case, was apt, affective, and compelling. Saraceno’s poems teach us that one moment can be complicated and sound. She shows us that these moments are what make us human.
Using crisp, bright imagery, even in moments of darkness, Saraceno tackles the topic of human expression. Of Dirt and Tar wades through moments of guilt, anger, confusion, grief, calm, and joy. In her poem “Persephone’s Shade,” Saraceno takes on several of these emotions in one stretch, highlighting the struggle of duality, of darkness challenging the light, of discovering a much different self:
Sometimes returning to daylight,
to my mother’s soft instruction, her pain,
the world of sunrise, apples, larks…
I could barely stand the ache, the urge
to submerge myself in the dark,
fierce world of his eternal need,
the other self his body made of me.
Darkness is always present, even in moments of light. It creeps along the outskirts of a personality until fully realized and accepted. This was one of my favorite poems from the collection. It demonstrated that one moment of reflection can trigger an entirely new realization of self.
Split into four unique sections, Of Dirt and Tar, at first glance, appears to be an eclectic collection. Each section wears a different style, from adult narrative, to childhood memory, to persona poems, and finally to prosier poems in the final section. However, the overall tone and message of the work sings in harmony. There is an intense wonder, even a certain magic, in being human. In her poem “At a Bazaar,” Saraceno writes:
At one table, a woman talks to a child at her feet
…just lay down…go to sleep. By the time you wake up,
you’ll be home. The girl is curled
on a faux Persian rug rolled over the cement floor.
I look at her tangle of brown hair
and wonder at this simple magic,
her travel from place to place
through the incantation of sleep.
I wonder if I lie down beside her
which home I would wake in.
Of Dirt and Tar contains accessible and rich poems that will leave you learning, or at least wondering, a little more about yourself. In which home will you find yourself waking?
June Sylvester Saraceno is the author of two poetry collections, Of Dirt and Tar, and Altars of Ordinary Light, as well as a chapbook of prose poems, Mean Girl Trips. Her work has appeared in various journals including Poetry Quarterly, Southwestern American Literature, and Tar River Poetry. She is English program chair at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe, as well as MFA faculty and founding editor of the Sierra Nevada Review. For more information visit www.junesaraceno.com
