The Woman I Kept to Myself

I was given this collection as a gift a couple of years ago, and I read one or two of the poems, and then put it on my to-be-read shelf. Last week I retrieved the book and read the poems over the course of the week...out loud to myself. What a delight! Each poem is thirty lines long, and divided into three stanzas. There were only a few times that I felt that the form overwhelmed the poem. Alvarez covers a range of subjects in her poems; she writes about trees, about her family, about growing up in the Dominican Republican and in America, about herself as writer, herself as woman, among other things. And all with an easy, insightful touch. I love her sense of humour, I love her voice, I love the way in which the poems reveal aspects of the woman she kept to herself. This is a collection by a mature poet, looking at her life and celebrating it!

I love Julia Alvarez's other books, especially "In the Time of the Butterflies." This is her newest book, a book of poetry. You can see how these poems reflects the author and they really touched home with me. I read and reread the poems and found pieces of myself in almost each one. I have marked the ones that mean the most to me and return to read them often.

After being frustrated by a number of poorly written books of poetry, this book fell into my lap. Not only did I enjoy this book, but I am sure to read everything else published by Julia Alvarez. A highly recommended read for anyone. Her poems are deep and thoughtful and cover a variety of topics.

I have never been a huge fan of poetry; however, when I found out I was going to have the opportunity to meet Julia Alvarez at a reception I was planning, I read this book. It is thoroughly engaging and every time I picked it up I had a hard time putting it back down. If the eyes are the windows to someone's soul, these poems are Ms. Alvarez's virtual eyes for us to gaze into. In closing, if you have an opportunity to attend a reading with Ms. Alvarez, I highly recommend it.