PAT LOWERY COLLINS

"A painter turns her powers of observation and interpretation to the world of poetry.

When a painter/illustrator turns her well-honed powers of observation and interpretation to the world of poetry, the optimal result is an aesthetic wedding of the visual and the verbal. Such is the case with Gloucester artist, Pat Lowery Collins, also the author of many acclaimed children's books, most notably 'I Am An Artist', a two time Reading Rainbow selection.

In her just-published collection, 'The Quiet
Woman Wakes Up Shouting', the eighth offering in publisher Ray Bentley's Folly Cove chapbook series, Lowery Collins proves herself a contemplative creature with an eye, ear, nose, taste and touch for nature's secrets.

In '7:00 P.M.,' the opening poem, Lowery Collins depicts the moment of transforming early evening half-light. In clean strokes, she captures the evanescence of the fading sunlight that rinces 'houses, beaches and boats/with fool's gold.' Shells seem to be made of glass, sand castles turn to bronze, and a general 'glistening spell' is perceived by those lingering, receptive souls who are resourceful enough to bear witness with 'the marrow of bone,/the window of eye,/an expandable heart.'

Indeed, the 25 poems in this painterly collection combine elemental evocation with prayer-like appreciation. In 'The Thunder Moon', the orb of the stormy, evening sky throbs with rich, textured tones: 'The moon, spidered with fine red roads,/looked like vermeil,/or the pulse of summer, or/like the end of God's thumb.'

Even in perceiving a grown daughter's interaction with her young son, Lowery Collins utilizes the sights, smells, sounds and sensations of the sea and seasons. As her grandson rushes into his mother's arms, the poet frames the scene:'From across the room/I'm holding/my own tall child/in my eyes. Her hair/smells of salt./There's wind and summer in her skin.'

On a less joyous note, 'Still Born' records the swelling, swimming and spilling of incipient life. In a paradox that re-echoes the collection's title of a quiet woman shouting, the poem concludes, 'The shout/Of a dead child carries.'

Thus, the poems are deep-seated, well-measured epiphanies, organic manifestations of fragility and strength that gather grace as they swim, like fishes in the sea, from the poet's palette - her mind, her soul, her lips."

- Lyn LeGendre, "Northshore Supplement", Essex County Newspapers, 5/14/98


THE QUIET WOMAN WAKES UP SHOUTING is available from the author for $8.95 plus postage.

A collection of very visual poems, a few of which are reproduced here.



From Here


Suddenly children
scuttling the rocks
like ants in coats and hats,

or bright pebbles bouncing
upon icy sand crusts.
Darker coats bend

over tide pools,
the teaching voices
blown to sea.

Gloved hands
pull down woolen hats
or slip fingers from mittens

to pass over the spines
of sea urchins
and startle

the tongues of barnacles
or to crumble sand dollars
for the stars inside.

On another beach
children are, even now,
finding the broken pieces.

(first published in Yankee)




Daughters Lost or Drowning


When the small silkie
sped toward our legs
as we waded,
and strangers called
"Look!" and asked
"Is it yours?"
as though we
routinely
went walking
through shallows
with seals,

I jumped from her path,
but you stayed
while she made two circles
of your bare ankles,
then darted away
leaving nothing,
no ripple.

"One year," a man told us
"One came in
like that. Next day
the mother washed up
on shore."

At night I dream
our daughter
is small again,
white face framed
by the silk of her hair.
She rides the water
as high as our eyes,
makes it easy to catch her
to circle her
just like a net.

(first published in ArtsNorth)




7:00 pm


It is time
to harvest the light
rinsing houses, beaches and boats
with fool's gold,

to intercept
the red stare of windows
fastened upon
the slipping
face of the sun.

It's the hour
for the last tricks
of a burning alchemist -
shells made of glass,
sandcastles of bronze,
this glistening spell
as our part of the earth
turns away. Owning little
in which to collect fire

we use what we have -
the marrow of bone,
the window of eye,
an expandable heart.