Hortensia, in winter . . . is record, tribute, illumination of word and a collection of images. Is it a narrative collection, a persona poem, or an elegy? Yes and no is my answer to all three possibilities. The work is a remarkable tour de force that I was privileged to read.
I was touched immediately by meeting Hortensia Merchant, born March 30, 1824. The poetry brings Megan to Hortensia, Hortensia to Megan. The reader is viewer of conversations but never a voyeur. Megan paints multiple images of Hortensia that shine lights on her humanity, passions, and resignation to a life somehow unfinished.
DEAR HORTENSIA (p.18) begins with a dark corner of Hortensia’s life; “Did they bring a cat into the corner of the room when you birthed, to teach you how to clamp down complaint? The poem continues “. . . To house a passion in the rooms of your body more rabid than hunger. . .. “Megan’s language is spare and precise, a sharpness that cuts and begins to heal the wounds of her subject almost immediately.
SUBJECTS TO CONSIDER FOR BOTH PAINTING & WRITING (p.26) represents in my reading Megan in motion. Her language is incredibly lyrical and intense; “The clicking sound that Mahjong tiles make. The speed at which they are placed. A windchime strung with bones . . . Radishes in a white bowl.” The sounds made by the spoken words carry me as reader to a place where language takes on a life of its own. It is from away and achingly familiar. BAPTISM (p.64) shares words that tell me about hope, the possible and the wonders of life. “My son buries a pinecone, hopes for a tree. . .. When our pond freezes, the fish go quiet . . . We leave them alone through the wide-stretch of winter – half awake, shimmering.” REVISION (p. 66) presents Megan speaking to Hortensia, an exhortation “. . . Hortensia, I have been pacing the rooms of this house for days trying to find the perfect light. I wasn’t lying when I said that maybe the only thing that matters is what comes after the last word.”
Hortensia, in winter is a superb work by an insightful and gifted poet.