It's Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems

With three previous anthologies of poetry under her belt, multi-time award winning Canadian poet Jeanette Lynes returns with the fourth volume "It's Hard Being Queen". Bouncing between being profound and hilarious, the collection brings a hard-hitting impact followed by much needed comic relief. "It's Hard Being Queen" is very much worth acquiring for poetry-starved readers. "California": She loves the wild/west the moment/she touches down./So much pink most/adored shade. No/more moors, grim/governess tales.//Here she can cross/lines, slide/like Peggy Lee/right into "Fever."//This town drips/citrus and stars./Hazy on history she/seems to remember/a gold rush. She'll/rewrite history it's that/kind of country, declare/a dust Rush/from this/day forward.

Canadian poet Jeanette Lynes has captured Dusty in ways that no biographer can and with an eye/ear for detail that academics can only dream of. Poets, of course, have that famous "license" and Lynes takes delicious advantage of it. In these amazing poems, Lynes shows us aspects of Dusty in vivid close-up and gives a sense of how Dusty might have felt at certain moments in her richly lived life. Lynes also conveys what others thought of Dusty--her fans, the press, her friends--with nuance but also with blunt honesty. Dozens of images and metaphors struck me as absolutely on target and echoed in my head long after I'd read the book. I came away with a new facet in my understanding of Dusty. I think Dusty would have loved this book and would have had great admiration for Lynes' poetic gift. It's a beautiful read and, ultimately, a unique tribute to a unique talent.

This is a phenominal piece of work....for all Dusty lovers and those that will be.