JIM
MCCRARY Reviews
Silence by Julie Unruh
(Global Green Publishing, Lawrence.
Ks, 2017)
I first heard Julie reading from this manuscript in the basement of a
dive bar in downtown Lawrence, Kansas at an open mic event. She read low and fast it seemed or I am not
hearing as well as I should. Which made
it difficult to follow and yet I heard enough to create interest. A few weeks later as I was leaving the
library, someone called my name. It was Julie
and she ran up to hand me a copy of her new chapbook, Silence. A gift, indeed. I do love the community of public reading but
the true indulge comes having the book in hand and the voice in memory. To the title..Silence..much attention on that
word these days so, yes, I do look forward to finding how and when the title
comes into the text itself….if, already, I haven’t or shouldn’t read too much
into anything. Is it about ‘breaking silence’ or ‘not silence’ or what writing of or in or on
silence. To be discovered.
Here is an example:
VAPORS
Memories
Are fed to me
Cannot grab them
They are but vapors
Among my brain
Here is another
example:
BROKEN HEART SYNDROME
Portrait of the grieving
women shrouded
by cloaks, bending
with their hands, covering
their faces, supporting
their crying bodies.
All you can see
is blackness
staring back at you.
Straightforward. Definite.
Unadorned. Each poem is printed with facing photographs by
either Unruh or a friend. The words
‘coma’ and ‘the disability’ appear in the texts. The words ‘love’,’ God’ and ‘wilderness’ are
found also. All of which adds up to a
well put together first chapbook. Mazel
tov.
*****
Jim McCrary
lives in Lawrence, Kansas. His most recent publication is A Year Book
from Shirt Pocket Press which is a memoir in a series of one line recollections
for the 75 years of his life.
