Stained Glass: poems by Joanna Kurowska

Having previously reviewed Inclusions by Joanna Kurowska, I looked forward to her most recent book of poems, Stained Glass, which the poet kindly sent for my review.

Published by eLectio Publishing, this slender volume immediately spoke to me in the title poem “Stained glass,” which begins:

“I don’t know whose garden this is

the wind-whisper gently blowing,
an ocean under the leaf’s surface,
universes crossing in a spider”

Those lovely lines express the uncertainty many of us feel when we’ve gone from a home in one place to another far away. Although the poet crossed the Atlantic in relocating from Poland to the United States, the sense of mystery and fragmentation can occur even as we change regions, making

“pieces of stained glass I must
arrange, knowing they are necessary.”

In such times, we may wonder, where are we? Where do we fit? Who are we? And where is God in all this?

In the second poem, the “I” of the poem states: “For a moment I turned into a plant.” But that transplantation gets re-routed then re-rooted in the poem’s closing lines:

“My entire body being made of light,
nothing separates me from the heart of a tree
or from other hearts in the palm of man’s hand.”

Reconnecting with oneself and each tense of life has to begin somewhere – past, present, or future. Interestingly, the poet began the first of four sections in the book with “The Cemetery,” which “was dying” before taking us on a tour of her native land with the colorful memories of a child.

In “Transgressions,” for example, we learn:

“The nineteen-fifties
had the blue color of the smoke
from the cigarettes of Grandpa Witold,
may he rest in peace.”

And in “The Lesson,” we discover:

“The nineteen-sixties were yellow or red,
full of exalted anthems to the fatherland
and military songs about the People’s Poland.”

“Expulsion” tells us:

“The nineteen-seventies were brown
like the background in a still-life.
In place of flowers or apples
gray eyes shone.”

We feel the loss – of place and “Youth” – before turning to section two “Time of Grace,” which seems to be a time of change and struggle.

As Mount Tabor is the likely site of Jesus’ transfiguration, the poem “Mount Tabor” has its own transformations to consider:

“Lord, put out the fire, let me step down from Tabor
onto solid ground, to tamed realities
Let me recoup the shapes in the names of things
I must know, can I still see or have lost my sight?”

In the third section of the book, “File #3” begins with “the Berlin boys” as the poetic voice asks:

“What are the Berlin boys doing now?
The one who used to walk with a dog
alongside the train corridors?
the one, who held my passport….
…the one who aimed his
machine gun at me from up high?”

Other troubling questions with no answers occur in “Christmas now,” which begins:

“What if he were born today
and the hotels ran out of rooms?”

then goes on to ask if the twelve-year-old Jesus would need to set up profiles on Twitter and Facebook, or, as an adult…

“Could he stay unemployed, spend the night
by the lake, make campfires, heal without
a license, transform himself with impunity
in the company of persons decreed dead?

The last section “Nothing” sees “no way out,” yet looks to death as “opening to freedom” and life as “an unfolding flower.” Either way, there’s no containment, no strict answers in a box clicked shut, but pieces of life and memories remain as does “The Presence” where “God is next to you” – in your kitchen or Auschwitz.

Despite the sharp edges of reality, these fragments come together and find a unique yet familiar pattern, ready to go on.

Review by Mary Harwell Sayler, ©2017

Stained Glass, paperback



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Poetry Book Review: Inclusions

Before Červená Barva Press published Inclusions, the first book of poems written in English by Polish-American poet Joanna Kurowska, she’d had two books of poems in Polish published in Poland with one published in the U.S.

Language proves no barrier, however, but provides delight in whatever is present or whatever Presence is perceived. In the opening poem “Indian Summer,” for example, the poet pictures various people who come and go where “…happiness was /within reach; a thin screen/ separated them from it” but “they passed by, without/ stretching their arms to pick it.” Beside evoking an image of ripe autumn fruit with the word “pick,” we get the lyrical reminder that, yes, we can choose to seek what pleases us and makes us happy.

In the second poem, “A World Without Honey,” the poet clarifies that choice by presenting the opposite option, not with dark thoughts and a heavy hand but with a matter-of-fact levity that alights on such lines as “The world without honey/ is a desolate place. It is/ the wonderland of just milk” – a place where “The dew in a melon/ is no longer honey dew; / it is just dew.” Besides the humor of “just dew,” I couldn’t help but think of a “honey-do list” with no honey to do anything.

Also inherent in the choices we all must make is the milk-and-honey promised land we choose to accept or not, whether we're aware of that option or not. For example, in “A Sunday Mass at St. Jacob’s,” the poet admits “It’s easy to believe in the cathedral/ Slightly harder to believe in the Virgin’s gilt robe.” In keeping with the title and theme of inclusions, however, the “I” of the poem asks to “…stay in the darkness of opposing beliefs/ Whatever is there, I am your complete other/ Loving you; choking with gratitude.”

This flexibility continues even in “The Mirror,” where a rigid, reflective surface can only present what is there and not how it’s viewed by the viewer until “She turned away from the mirror/ and heard the lark’s morning song.”

The emptying of self in that walk away from the mirror comes back again in the poem, “Nothing,” which begins, “I am thankful for nothing,” then takes an unexpected turn in “I can carry it in my purse,/ in a suitcase, a cart/ or in my backpack.” The poem continues with thoughts of filling that nothing with various somethings before resolving, “Or I can leave it empty;/ be thankful for my nothing. Living in its presence is like/ a stroll on the verge of a precipice.”

Before verging away from this discussion though, I’d like to backtrack to the title poem found a little beyond the half-way point of this lovely book. As the word, “Inclusion,” suggests, the “I” of the poem wants “to make sure/ that nothing is missing….” And so, “between the alpha and omega,” we find the return of honey and a little of everything in “the wave tickling my feet,/ and the toothless woman who, in the train,/ kissed her boyfriend.” But “most importantly/ i want to make sure/ that i, too, am included/ in the world deposited/ on God’s tongue.”

© 2014, Mary Harwell Sayler


Inclusions, paperback



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