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Title: Flying Blind: Poems by Sharon Bryan ISBN: 0-9641151-7-4 Publisher: Sarabande Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: A fun and elegant book by a first-rate poet.
Comment: Sharon Bryan has a superb feel for words and a distinct original way of looking at things. All of the poems here are worth reading, and many of them are brilliant.

Rating: 5
Summary: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"
Comment: I usually take particular interest in the title poem of a collection. Sometimes it completely encapsulates the poet's point of view--sometimes it ties together several loose themes within the book. At eighteen lines (narrow lines at that) "Flying Blind" is one of the shortest poems in the book. It is short and tight, with monosyllabic words dominating the poem Each word like an attention getting clap--especially in the first line, "We can't quite see". The harsh vowel sounds give power and directness. Larger words come later in the poem as the ideas become more complex and abstract in lines such as "to serenade the universe". "Flying Blind" explains that we know the world and the universe only through our words, and that as we "fly" through it all we only really have our language to guide us. The voice of the narrator is speaking with the authority of a director of a production, speaking from offstage to explain the principle idea behind the scene. With the exception of "Frankly", "Trimmings" and "What Biology is all About" it is hard to say exactly where the narrator is in this collection of poems. In fact, it is almost like a "Where's Waldo" book--she is usually in the position of one in a crowd, rarely referring to herself as an individual. It feels as though she is one of us (sometimes speaking for us) referring to "we" "us" and "our" as a collective humanity, and when "you" is used, it refers to all of us, as though we are being addressed by this Poet/Teacher conglomerate who is sharing wisdom. An example of this conglomerate voice is in the poem "Foreseeing". The audience is not inclusive of the narrator, although she is present in the form of voice. While there is no "I" in this poem, there is a sort of omniscient "eye", one that is not present in all of the poems, but in a few (such a as in "Beholden", "Bemused", "Minutiae" and "Theory". In these poems there is "you". Her omniscient voice in "Foreseeing" has a strange sense of personal knowledge. The voice is one of experience, one that is intimate with age. The poem made me think of writing on a wall, perhaps carved into marble--speaking a truth to us amongst the statues--perhaps like proverbs deemed absolute and universal. What does "we" and "us" do? As I was reading these poems I found myself buying into the ideas presented, and I was able to relate to the narrator in a strangely personal (strange because she seems so impersonal) way. I found myself thinking "Oh, she's one of us", sparing me from a large condescending tone explaining how the world works(like the Wizard of Oz). I feel as though I am on Sharon's team with all the "we" togetherness, as though she is the woman sitting next to me who happened to speak for us all. I have to wonder what her purpose for distancing herself from her poetry is-- and what purpose that serves for her in the process. I wonder if she feels a distance between herself and her poems, or perhaps a fear of intimacy with her inner self (it could also be she was simply trying to be different). Her focus is largely outward, with a leaning for the appreciation of words themselves--as if the words actively shape her reality rather than words describing her reality. She seems to have fun with it, as seen in the poems paying tribute to prefixes and suffixes (i.e. "Be-" and "-Esque"), coming to a point with the cliché ridden rhythmical poem "Sweater Weather: A Love Song to Language". I did not like the poem all that much, on the surface it is unoriginal and against the norms of avoiding clichés in poetry. However, I commend her for taking a risk with this poem. There is a recognized power behind clichés, and this poem is a bunch of snippets of emotion delicately arranged. The fact that the poems are alphabetically arranged further demonstrates her priorities on letters and language. While most poets tediously arrange their collections based on emotion, topic, and general feel, Sharon Bryan has gone even more basic-- the alphabet. The alphabet being the roots of all written and spoken words, without which there would be no emotional conveyance--no transference of thoughts and ideas through speech, writing, or poetry. Sharon Bryan's distance from her work makes a point--that point being the importance of language. Is it a coincidence that that is also the point of the title poem? I don't think so. I highly reccomend this collection.