Poems From The Alley

In this selection of new poems, Susan Blanshard's poetry collection exists as a memorandum of her expatriate life in Hanoi, Vietnam. By default, the alley becomes her second home. A succession of days, becomes months. She uses historical time, giving shape and significance to this immense cultural exchange. The presence of a foreigner, as the Poet meets Priests, matriarchs, orphans, war heroes, communist party leaders, street sellers, children, visionaries, artists, prisioners, market sellers... in the surrounds of The Old French Quarter. Here strong family bonds merge with old ghosts, at weddings, funerals, ceremonies, customs, culture, war stories, these come together in the same living bloodstream. Luminous, reflective, confessional at times, Susan Blanshard's 'Poems from the Alley' looks at the light and dark, stone and flesh, water and land, the slopes of these bodies with flashes of autobiographical disclosure. As with all her poems, acknowledgement of the human spirit is evident, not separable, from her writing. 'Poems From The Alley' finds shelter in the shift between techniques. Susan brings the present and past worlds to life by reversing and elaborating traditional stanzas and bringing soothsaying echoes of historic form to light. Plain truths of everyday life becomes a gulley-trap for expression, the other side of emotions, the unexpected face, looking at scenes, remembering small details. As with previous works, epic book-length prose of 'Sheetstone', 'Honey In The Blood,' and the poetry of 'Fragments of The Human Heart', 'Quieter Histories', 'Send The Raven', Blanshard connects epochs of time with subtlety, elegance, imagination, emotional attitude, and notable sensuality. 'Poems From The Alley' is a continuum of the dialogue with past and present histories, what is inherited, possessed and dispossessed; there is a sensuous appreciation of thought, what is remembered and what is known. A passionate conversation that exists at the center of her poetry.