SOME THOUGHTS ON NB's
BOOK OF POEMS . . .

In parts that were once whole, images recur--sky, light, petals.
We are constantly TESTING reality via experience, especially
our perceptions of nature. We are born, but from there it
is largely experience that shapes who we are (and circumstance).
One thing is for sure: we have a body. And a fact: the body
doesn't last. And yet, what's "miraculous" is that beauty, a thing
we can only know because we HAVE a body, makes life
worth living (right?). The poems in Nancy's book argue
for their value by making CONCRETE that beauty we
have experienced through the senses via the use of language--
metaphor, etc. The mind, the heart, the self . . . are they
merely abstractions, since mere words? In the end, the book
examines structures of consciousness (and celebrates conscious-
ness). Catholicism is just something that "happened" to this
"being" . . . Still, one's particular place in all things is determined
by something as random as our birth to two people who happen
to believe in a particular faith, who happen to live in a particular
region (Midwest, Detroit). From such a beginning, somehow,
we manage to make "intelligent" choices (?), though it's pretty
existential overall. And yet, and yet. Our ability to make art
is a transformative act. Once we've established what IS there is
no telling what "we" might become (if who we are is how we
interpret what we experience, and what we in fact then DO to
influence what we experience). Death, of course, is an urgency
that intensifies everything, including beauty.