The End of Desire: Poems

"The End of Desire is chilling, deep down, riviting, and wide open. Jill Bialosky's account of an innocence ripened before its time. Enough to make one warm and cold at the same time. Crawl under the covers, because it is an experience of exposure, brave and raw. Left wide open for the vultures/ I too greedily lapped up her words. Licking at my own wounds, tasting salt, and laughing like tears. The wailing inside knocking against the ribs. The chest moving up and down, something caught in the throat. Once funny or innocent. Now wet, and warm trickling down the cheeks as if blood itself. A river. The insides turned out/ this is the beauty of Bialosky's mirror. Poetry reflecting like a pond. Light on top, yet deep down knowing there are dark and murky waters. Muck for between your toes, and slimy fronds to wrap strongly around your ankles. The unknown. AT one point Bialosky reveils, "Why do you worry so, when none of us is spared?" (p 72, The Goddess of Despair). Her poetry like the dirty dishes no one else bothered to notice. The embarrasing stain of adolescent mentruation. Like looking in the mirror, and realizing the falsity, the game. A fleeting glimpse of something shiny, happy. The taste of lemon taffy/ or a familiar cracked doll with faded paint smile. The memory of a warm palm against your face, and the billowy curtains which shimmer in the distance. Their thoughts linger there. Savoring the attic of the soul. A pause between breath as pain tills transformation. Life and death the swinging of an old screen door on the back porch of memory. Bravo!

Bialosky discusses with refreshing simplicity subjects that centuries of poets have anguished over. The terror of death, the sometimes unhappy progression of relationships and the despair of being childless are all subjects that have the danger of becoming cliche once in poem form. Bialosky's poems, however, are so personal and specific that even the age old lamenting of despair seems like a fresh subject. We, as readers, have made a quasi journey through the life of a woman who has struggled to understand the unpredictable nature of life.

Jill Bialosky's first book "The End of Desire" is fabulous. It is full of beautiful language and strong narrative poems. Many of the themes of this book--including family, death, sisterhood, daughterhood, childhood, parental love, romantic love, first love, and desire--are universal. The way they are written about, however, is anything but common. They're written about in the true language of poetry, carefully chosen words combined with images of childhood and nature. Although Bialosky's poetry seems to follow a strict layout thematically, her poetry has rich variety within each one. She manages to even address things that are extremely corrosive, such as rape and manipulation, without making her words sound sordid. Instead her tone is sad, but gentle and steady. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes poetry for its rich language and its delicate but honest treatment of tough issues.

Jill Bialosky's The End of Desire is a poignantly voiced journey. I am drawn to Bialosky's work for a number of reasons, the strongest being, I just can't seem to get over the way it follows me. It has a staying power-an echo effect. Perhaps it is the sensation of wanting to close one's eyes and sigh a lot. Bialosky's ability to shape and craft her tone so elegantly through her use of language is her most powerful tool. The End of Desire contains an almost narrative-like structure, in which Bialosky weaves an elegy for the past. One beautiful element of the book is how Bialosky's elegiac tone develops, complicates, heightens and transforms to a tone that is still elegiac and elegant, yet has developed an edge, perhaps a subtle sense of irony. By "Winter" (the last section of the book), Bialosky's voice is speaking from a somewhere else. In this place, her words seem to be glazed in a thick abrasive winter light that pales and grays all color, for which one simultaneously awaits for and is haunted by the night. We have gone from the place in which "House" speaks (the first section of the book), where a familiarity, a warmth and a sense of loss resonates, to "Winter" where we feel a coldness, a distance, and a sense of loss. Instead of being placed within the past, as we are in "House" (as well as are in "Reckless Heart" for awhile), in "Winter" we experience a re-envisioning of the past. Bialosky's work should be hung in one long open, empty stone hallway-a very hollow space, for her work echoes so beautifully.

I really enjoyed reading Bialosky's poetry. I read the book cover to cover then went back and re-read each poem, taking careful note of her use of language. My favorite is the last stanza in the poem "Skating Pond".