For You To Heal
Joe Bisicchia has put together a book of poems about healing and trying overall to get better, and to deal with the process all of that may entail. The poems are written in free verse and prose. He uses a generous mixture of styles which gives it a fresh perspective.
Amazon USAFor You To Heal
Poetry in the tending and mending
Joe Bisicchia
ISBN: 978-93-95224-11-6
Copyright 2022, Cyberwit
Reviewed by LB Sedlacek
Joe Bisicchia has put together a book of poems about healing and trying overall to get better, and to deal with the process all of that may entail. The poems are written in free verse and prose. He uses a generous mixture of styles which gives it a fresh perspective.
He begins the book with a poem entitled “For You.” It contains this verse “We each long to be healed. / So near the healer, if only we knew. / So near to heal each other. / So near to let go and be healed.”
Such is the need for healing in so many forms. It is a welcoming comfort to find this poem at the start as we are all repairing ourselves or hoping for this for someone else or something else most all the time.
Bisicchia offers up a clear vision and a constant energy throughout the book. Each poem awakens the senses. It’s almost as if time is standing still or moving in slow motion in each line giving the book an essence all to itself.
The book’s theme centers around the care of a patient, healing experiences and also of trying to be well again. Who hasn’t been in this predicament themselves? Or who hasn’t had family members, friends or other loved ones in that same situation? I personally have recently experienced this with friends and family. I found this book of poems to be of great comfort. Reading can provide solace, and this book of poems offers that and so much more.
Other poems refer to memorials, war, and other historical events or places. Those are interweaved within the poems about medical care or the healing process, and what it’s like to be cared for in one way or another.
From the poem “West Tower Sundowners”: “Without any understanding,
we may follow clock’s swords / as they swipe all the field of its colors. And wonder of the loss of ourselves. / The loss of peace.” Bisicchia takes this very real thing that often plagues patients and brings it to a safe place of understanding and a certain kind of familiarity. It is so hard to see a friend or loved one experiencing sundowners, but having this poems as a reminder that it too can be gone through and/or overcome is welcoming.
The poems in this book are a gift. They will nourish the soul and greet the reader with an inspiring solace.
Bisicchia turns reality into a dream. His poems offer the expectancy of promise. His book has texture with layers that will get under your skin. He puts his poems in your hands to have, to hold, and to hope.
~LB Sedlacek is the author of “Ghost Policy,” “Swim,” “The Poet Next Door,” “Simultaneous Submissions,” and “Four Thieves of Vinegar & Other Short Stories.”