Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds by Holly Day

Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds by Holly Day

Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds by Holly Day

Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds is an excellent book of poems by Holly Day.

Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds is an excellent book of poems by Holly Day.

At the beginning of the poem THE UNSCHEDULED INTERRUPTION, we see the high expectations the subjects have for a photo to be taken:

We line up for the photographer, try to look smart and sophisticated, worthy of observing. There’s no telling what one of us might accomplish someday.
There may be a reason for this picture to hang in some important building
in some university hallway, or over the desk of an obsessed scholar. There might be inspiration in our ranks, some yet-undiscovered genius.

 

The final lines seem to question the reader as well as the poet :

Will the observers of this photo
even know who we are

and if so, will they love or revile us for the things we have yet to do?

What follows is a poem to read if you want horror and a bit of stimulation ! And a ‘few’ political suggestions, as well.

Philosophic, and with vague references which are topical in a general sort of way, for example : “Mr. President” could be Kennedy; after all, the title of this poem is ARMAGEDDON, MARILYN-STYLE. In all likelihood, this poem is not about Marilyn, but is Marilyn Monroe style, hence the direct and yet suggestive referral to Death :

I’m walking in your dreams, Mr. President
the only real person in these streets.
The sky is on fire—are you going to call me back?
Death is your favorite lover and I’m
teeming with life.

Can the “fire” refer to the forest fires in California, USA ? The forests are certainly “teeming with life” as is the author. “I hugged the receiver /between my thighs and pretended it was you/ all night.”

Quite a bit of titillation !

And is she referring to ’Global Warming,” or Atomic War:

(the simulation is complete.
Project title: Armageddon.
Logoff.
it’ll take forever to clean up this mess.)

 

Ms. Day has a great skill at expanding our vision to a dark sphere; dark, like nightmares, softened by analysis and explanations of the guiding circumstances.

In the poem WHITE GIRL, after we hear the phrases about the victim’s “heroine-goddess /tall, white” lover who is his “Aryan princess,” which could come right out of the ‘White Supremacist’ movement in the modern USA. Then  we see the ending and how this very image can ‘’drown’ its lover:

under the water
in the moonlight

and she pulls you
down to her
smiling
until the bubbles stop

She writes with a skill often not seen in this kind of expression. Few writers can examine the dark side with the skill of Bram Stoker in Dracula, or Mary Shelley in Frankenstein. Like those writers, she maintains a delicious romanticism while skinning the flesh off certain subjects.

Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds is a book worth buying and reading. It is full of ‘thrills.’ Check it out and it will tickle and shock your imagination !

 

By Mary Barnet
Founder and Editor of PoetryMagazine.com
Author of Haiku Meets the 21st Century: The Haiku of Sayumi Kamakura (Cyberwit, 2019)
Nobel Nominated Poet, The New American: Selected Poems (Gilford Press, 2006)