Book Reviews

Body On The Wall by Michelle Wing

Michelle Wing’s captivating book of poetry, Body On The Wall — is divided into four elements: Wind, Fire, Earth and Water.  Michelle delves into the complex array of emotions with an artist’s eye and sure hand, transporting the reader from piece to piece with honesty and intensity.

In Wind, readers feel the breeze, the cleansing air, the playfulness, despair and hope.

In Fire, the rich texture and complex layers travel a labyrinth of emotional experiences.

In Earth, more ups and downs on the emotional ladder of pain, humiliation, awareness, hope, reality.

In Water, new life, satisfaction, rejection, sharp pain, settling, calming and humor.

Joanna McClure, an original San Francisco Beat Poet:

I enjoyed reading Michelle Wing’s poetry — full of her rich and varied multi-cultural life —  its sensual pleasures as well as its dark depths.

Kathy Myers reviews Body On The Wall:

I wish I could reach through the cover photograph of this book, rip off the layers of dry weathered paper hanging there and reveal the firm seasoned planks nailed underneath. Not to worry. Michelle Wing does this for us. She takes the reader through an intimate journey from hurt to hope, loathing to love, and from victim to heroine. Chapters are divided by the elements: wind and fire poems touch on painful issues— helplessness, anger and abuse, then transition to earth and cooling water peppered with love and good humor. She mixes her forms and is consistent with rich metaphors and telling vignettes. My favorite poem is “If you asked me” that describes a loved one who crawls under a dirty deck to retrieve a ring that has fallen through the cracks, and does it with laughter—without complaint. It summarizes a truly romantic act that feeds love in the long term. In the poem “The Fence” she describes encircling a Montana ranch rail by rail, and nail by nail, and when complete she had not only a fine fence, but “twenty acres of I am.”

9780991395200_cov RC 05.inddMichelle’s collection gives us a hundred pages of I am: stripping down life experiences to express their essence, and revealing insights into the healing process. Eventually the useless layers of superficial paper covering the strong planks will be stripped away or they may fall off in their own given time. I can’t wait.

Body On the Wall, Poems by Michelle Wing

Michelle Wing is also a writer of creative nonfiction who blogs about writing, daily living with a service dog, and Practice The Way With Gratitude. For more information, see her website.

 

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