Today, May 5th, is the eight anniversary of Mom's death and I am still reeling from my dog Leda's passing two days ago. Here they are together on April 7th 2008 in my music room in Elyria when Leda was just a puppy. I can't help but recall what Patricia Kennealy said to Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's film The Doors: "Death does not part, only lack of love." And there is no lack whatsoever.
New Generation Beat Poet Laureate and Crisis Chronicles Press publisher John B. Burroughs
Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Loring Wirbel reviews Ode to Horatio and Other Saviors
We are grateful to Loring Wirbel for the following review he posted on Goodreads:
Carolyn Srygley-Moore's poetry collections are known for taking orthogonal pie slices through precise locations, times, and emotions for a unique specificity of images, even when steeped in surreality. Here, she takes us to a few brief months in 2012 surrounding the euthanasia of a beloved pitbull Evy. The fact that the poems all date from this period do not make them seem far away in time in the slightest, nor does the fact that she is working for animal rescue make this collection the slightest bit partisan or didactic. The simple thing to say is that this collection contains some of her strongest poems, but then again, we could say that about any of her works.
Since Srygley-Moore rarely gives us prose poems, it's interesting to see her open the collection with a powerful and distilled prose work, "A Place Like Brooklyn, Like Stonehenge." This is followed by the poem that gives the book its title, and the two works together set the stage for the passionate and unblinking works to follow. Three stunning poems serve as memorials to her father, a challenging figure in her life, and one whom she carries to safety in the heartbreaking "PTSD Hushabye."
Two poems in particular serve as memorials to both Horatio and Evy, "Dark, & Darker" and "Scattered Petals." There are several here that could provide a reader's favorite line, such as "Every homeland owns its slaughterhouse" in "An Angry Sad Poem," or "an idea in God's throat" in "Loves, Non-Loves, Anti-Loves." But don't let me steer you to particulars. As in her previous poetry collections, Carolyn Srygley-Moore astonishes the most when her work is swallowed in wholistic fashion. Do not worry about the book serving as a clarion call for animal rights, though that's important too. Accept the gift as just an unceasing marvel.
Carolyn Srygley-Moore's poetry collections are known for taking orthogonal pie slices through precise locations, times, and emotions for a unique specificity of images, even when steeped in surreality. Here, she takes us to a few brief months in 2012 surrounding the euthanasia of a beloved pitbull Evy. The fact that the poems all date from this period do not make them seem far away in time in the slightest, nor does the fact that she is working for animal rescue make this collection the slightest bit partisan or didactic. The simple thing to say is that this collection contains some of her strongest poems, but then again, we could say that about any of her works.
Since Srygley-Moore rarely gives us prose poems, it's interesting to see her open the collection with a powerful and distilled prose work, "A Place Like Brooklyn, Like Stonehenge." This is followed by the poem that gives the book its title, and the two works together set the stage for the passionate and unblinking works to follow. Three stunning poems serve as memorials to her father, a challenging figure in her life, and one whom she carries to safety in the heartbreaking "PTSD Hushabye."
Two poems in particular serve as memorials to both Horatio and Evy, "Dark, & Darker" and "Scattered Petals." There are several here that could provide a reader's favorite line, such as "Every homeland owns its slaughterhouse" in "An Angry Sad Poem," or "an idea in God's throat" in "Loves, Non-Loves, Anti-Loves." But don't let me steer you to particulars. As in her previous poetry collections, Carolyn Srygley-Moore astonishes the most when her work is swallowed in wholistic fashion. Do not worry about the book serving as a clarion call for animal rights, though that's important too. Accept the gift as just an unceasing marvel.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Ode to Horatio and Other Saviors by Carolyn Srygley-Moore was published in late 2020 by Crisis Chronicles Press.
Labels:
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Friday, October 30, 2020
Crisis Chronicles Press publishes Ode to Horatio and Other Saviors by Carolyn Srygley-Moore
Crisis Chronicles Press is pleased to present our long-awaited latest title, Ode to Horatio and Other Saviors, a compelling collection of poetry by Carolyn Srygley-Moore.
Ode to Horatio and Other Saviors is 92 pages, perfect bound, 6x6" and illustrated. ISBN: 978-1-64092-948-7. Front and back cover photos provided by the author. Available now for only $12 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3431 George Avenue, Parma, Ohio 44134 USA. A percentage of all proceeds from the sale of this book will go to support Rescue Dogs Rescue Soldiers, an organization that pairs shelter dogs with veterans and provides pet therapy programs.
"Carolyn Srygley-Moore’s poetry always enhances its relevance through specificity of coordinates in time and place. The poet has been a consistent fighter for animal rights and animal rescue services, tying them to imagery of human atrocities. In this collection, we go back to a specific era in 2012, and a specific friend named Evy, discovering the poems that illuminated the euthanasia of that dear friend. Her afterword essay is sure to bring tears. But that is Carolyn Srygley-Moore’s power."
—Loring Wirbel, writer and social justice activist
"A book of poems that takes you through meeting and instantly connecting with a beautiful pup, a snow white pit bull named Evy, coming to the awareness that this loving dog has issues that will be to its own demise, through no one’s fault. A book of poems on learning what it’s like to have that love and deep connection, yet coming to awareness and understanding that the ultimate choice had to be made — and the realization of actually having no choice, in reality, of having to surrender your animal to euthanasia. Walking down the road of having to come to terms with the fact that this loving dog could be/was a danger, especially towards children. Sweet Evy could be triggered at any moment in time, without warning, without any rhyme or reason, to become aggressive and dangerous and do severe harm to another body. This book is a roller coaster ride of emotions and mental anguish of having to euthanize this beautiful animal who you love so dearly."
—Judy Lynn Lustgarten Goldstein, activist
"Carolyn Srygley-Moore is a poet of enormous sensibility who combines confessional elements with a capacity to do what Heidegger said poets were for, which is to reveal the Being behind beings. Description of a whole array of things, however “poetic”, does not a poem make. Following a set of rules, merely emulating the constituents of a “canon of taste” will, almost infallibly, make “poets” crashing bores.
"We write, Heidegger reminds us, in “a destitute time” & “in default of God”. As an atheist, I am OK with this. Carolyn, however, does not like that “no god any longer gathers men & things unto himself.” Nothing shines any longer, it is night. The task of the poet is to find the wholesome. & the holy that relates to it, in the unholy that s/he depicts. This book deals with the subject of “euthanasia” of animals, in particular the “euthanasia” of one of the writer's dogs for alleged aggression. “Euthanasia” is far too frequently resorted to as part of the morally dubious treatment of pets in the USA, & it is remarkable that Carolyn deals with the subject with great restraint.
"Wherever Carolyn writes of that which is bad, the fact of her shows us what Hölderlin points out, that wherever there is danger there is also the seed of that which can save us. Because Carolyn is a great poet, the solution is not just hers, it is for Everyman. Although humans, or liars, as they are also known, work to destroy innocence, the poet in his or her poem points to where the future divinity will be found, or the future focus of being. It will not be in people, or anything anthropomorphic.
—David McLean, author of Flesh & Resurrection.
Carolyn Srygley-Moore (C Leigh Moore) is a writer who has encountered a variety of issues in her career. She has been published in Red Fez, I Am Not a Silent Poet, and other venues. Ode to Horatio parallels the plight of humanity with the plight of dogs randomly placed on death row. Carolyn's falling in love with the pit bull was ostensibly the beginning of years advocating for victims of breed specific legislation, including all breeds deemed dangerous by landlords and insurance pitfalls. She found the greatest meaning in her endeavors as transporter from shelter to adopter to foster etc. from winter 2019 to 20. Carolyn has had two emergency craniotomies leaving her with the current inability to drive. As well as caring for her own rescued pets, this elegy is the writer’s current contribution to the cause. Carolyn is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she recalls the night she fell passionately in love with language. Forty years later, that passion has lasted.
Labels:
2020,
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Carolyn Srygley-Moore,
Crisis Chronicles Press,
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Location:
Parma, OH, USA
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Farewell and Walk On
Farewell for the last time, 3344.
Leda on her first walk from our new house to South Park - also her first
walk without her mama and constant companion for the past eight years,
sweet Lady.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
Monday, October 6, 2014
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