Change (will do you good)
By Gail Rudd Entrekin

One could read this book, close it, after reading any page, and be left with the same impression, the poet's acute sense of the passage of time, combined with the sense that one ought to experience time as lived time, filled with what each moment brings.

Gail Rudd Entrekin presents a series of extremely honest and personal poems drawn from everyday experience. The poet uses intense, focused images, that are often arresting in their starkness and honesty. An important theme or sub-theme of the book is aging, from the perspective of woman, and woman as wife, as mother, and of course, as human being. There are poems on husband, children, and nature too. She shares a bit of her cultural history too, with references to James Taylor, Carole King, and Sade. Other references are painful to hear, as the killing of soldiers, in the poem, "The Mothers Speak: What We Want." This is all too relevant today, during the Iraq War of George W. Bush, whose lessons have apparently been lost on most politicians today, as it was during the Viet Nam war,

Focusing on change, as much as they do, and not shirking from describing painful events or feelings, one might wonder, is the poet pessimistic about the possibility that people could be happy? She helps us decide that one with the title, and how the title appears: "Change (will do you good)." Change is in large letters, and the subtitle is in lower case, and in parenthesis. And so it is. Change doesn't necessarily bring us happiness, but it always brings us something by way of insight into ourselves, or into the experience itself, whatever it may be.

Not clinging to what has passed, expresses the wisdom of the Eastern tradition to which the poet makes reference, as in her poem on yoga class. But describing each passing experience, and the thoughts and emotions that we bring to it, is the subject of poetry. And so, the poet clings to her experience in the act of writing, and it is from this that we benefit. One might say that the poems are almost like the charred embers or incinerated maps of experiences, which the poet bequeaths to herself, and to us, her grateful readers. But they glow in the dark, some feel warm and comforting, others are very hot, and we handle them with care. They express the essence of each experience, which arises and passes away, in space and time, but persists in the poet's consciousness, and memory, and is given some permanence in the physical poem. Rich or poor, black or white, regardless of nationality, we share our mortality with others, the human condition, through the language of poetry.

Actually, Gail develops the image of poetry as the burned essence of experience, in a poem toward the end of the book. She compares the growing cold of the fire within the earth, to her own fire and passions that wane with age. In "A Dying Planet" she writes in the sub-title: "If the fire at the heart of the earth were to go out, what would happen?" She answers, in the final stanza:

What will become of us? What kinds of matter,
What skills and workable philosophies,
Have a wrapped around my core in a lifetime of creating
this dying planet? See how my trajectory begins to shift
as the molten liquid hardens, settles and we circle
each other wobbling, seeking in the vast dark
some natural new orbit.

And is there a meaning to it all? The purpose of the poems is not to present a philosophy of "the meaning of life" or a particular religion or creed. Gail doesn't engage in speculation about God, an afterlife, a soul, or reincarnation. She stays focused on experience, how a person can find meaning in their life. Memories can only go so far, since this too, can fade with aging. What is left, then? Shared contact with others, and identifying with the ongoing activity of other beings on the planet, in the various phases of their becoming. She writes, on the very last paragraph of the very last poem, "What The Mind Wants":

I want to spend my last years on a wide porch
looking out on a green garden, golden light, color,
rocking in a white wicker chair, sweet scents on the breeze,
familiar young people who love me, and whom I love,
though perhaps I cannot remember,
coming and going, stopping to speak, to smile,
and I will pat their soft hair,
amazed at the glow,
taking it all in
gratefully.

Having discussed the philosophies behind the poems, let's examine in some more detail the quality of the writing and the various voices that we could discern in it.

There is the play of extended fantasy, dreams and psychological depths that appear in several longer poems. These poems have many intense, even compelling images and really can't be excerpted, but need to be read as complete poems. "The Long Night" consists of three dream fantasies of a mother and daughter on night(s) when they were climbing a mountain. There are several poems about the poet's relationship with her husband that are remarkable in their honesty, intensity and juxtaposing of images ("The Younger Man," and also, "Red Irises," which is printed below). Preventing diabetic coma in her daughter is one of the "Things You Never Thought You Could Do," and is one of several poems on this theme. Reflections on menopause in is the theme of "An Aging Woman," one of several poems in the book, in which the poet deals with her own aging.

To convey to the readers an additional sense of Gail's style and intensity, we decided to reproduce in full, two of the shorter poems, which reveal two different faces of the poet. The first poem, "Red Irises," juxtaposes staccato-like contrasting images, that surprise and delights the reader. The poem, "Blue Whales" reveals a lushness of expression, and a quality of absorption, in which the poet loses herself and pulls the reader in too.

RED IRISES

I choose peach pie, I chose the walk
in shaded places, the afternoon nap
with a drowsy book, the sprinklers hissing
on the undulating lawn; you choose
sex in the hammock, (kids in the TV room).

I choose digging along in the garden,
the dog asleep in the shade. You choose
Wittgenstein, pot smoking, weight lifting.
You choose satin sheets, X movies,
remodeling the house, a new stereo.

I choose a pastel drawing of a brown hillside
in Marin, pale sky, green cedars, blue fog.
I choose you.
You choose thick oils erupting off the canvas:
Red irises, thick leaves waving in a high wind.
You choose me.

BLUE WHALES

Blue whales are out there somewhere,
six thousand of the hundred of thousands
who once roamed the planet's seas.
Now separated from each other
by thousands of miles, they moan their loneliness
four octaves below middle C, so low, so slow,
we humans cannot ever hear. But on our ocean liners
and in our lighthouse kitchens, the cutlery jangles on the table,
the glass pane vibrates in its frame, and we know
something nearby is crying out for love.
Two thousand miles away, they can be heard
and answered, the loudest sound made by a living thing,
and we don't know what it says, but only that,
speeded up ten times, what we hear is a long, blue,
unearthly note, a gurgle so deep
we slip down into our own lostness
grateful that they are carrying for us.
something bigger than we could hold.

To conclude, there is a quality about the poems that make them very accessible and engaging - they speak to the reader, and many tell a story. Thus, the poems are not just for people who already read and love poetry, but would be a great gift to give to someone who says, "I don't read poetry." The book is printed in a very attractive format, (with cover illustration by Steve Solinsky), and is published by Poetic Matrix Press, which specializes in publishing works by contemporary poets (poeticmatrixpress.com).

Reviewed by Paul Dolinsky
editor@thegoldenlantern.com