Sway

This evocative offering by Tricia Johnson is pure poesy, an invitation to readers not only to appreciate the images and undertones of each work but also to ferret out the poet’s, and their own, deeper thinking.

This small but powerful aggregation is divided in four parts, each encompassing a season: Wildflower Bloom, Pumpkin Decorum, Light Captured Hexagons, and Melodious. The opening, eponymous piece depicts the poet hanging clothes on the line outdoors in the warm sunshine, noticing how the swinging garments seem to synchronize with nature’s “hidden song.” In “Warmth,” Johnson is again observing the distinctive joys of summer – “peonies blooming” and languid, luscious breezes:

Sit the feet up
Head back to stars
Crossed feet
Enjoy the meet

In “Enchanting Morning Walk,” Johnson cleverly remarks that the subtleties of the natural world as experienced on her trek in the early hours are “songs not heard in cities.” In “Suspension,” part of Pumpkin Decorum, the poet moves forward both inwardly and outwardly through the year as she lies in bed listening to the changing seasons. “Wink” briefly illustrates her recognition of more changes to come, as she returns the greeting of a red maple leaf, a harbinger of autumn. Winter arrives with the “white geometric creations” referenced in the title of the third segment. Johnson designates snow as “a silent friend falling” (“Connections”) and notes in “Sliding Into New” that winter is “absent of color / the color comes from inside.” The Melodious portion that concludes Johnson’s collection highlights the new awakening of spring: “heady, steamy, aromatic” (“Lovely Touch”). She fashions this invitation “To Spring”:

Come pull me from my mind
Out of the tangle
Winters last tentacles

The creator of this engaging assortment of spontaneous, sagacious seasonal vignettes, Johnson, a retired teacher, lives in Pennsylvania, in what one assumes is a rural region where the beauties and quietness of nature can be specially appreciated. The poems arrayed here are in the main introspective, revealing a love of language and a need for the solace and surprises of flowers, fields, stars, and snowflakes. They reflect her wish to share her unique perspective as she takes the simple cues offered by her environment and intuitively fashions them into wonder-laden word pictures.

Quill says: Poet Tricia Johnson has combined her gift of words with feelings, philosophies and natural phenomena in a collection that will warm hearts and open new inner doors.

 

Sway is a book of poems as firmly rooted in Pennsylvania as it is in nature, offering readers the opportunity to settle down in the “patterns and rhythms” of time and place, as the book’s title poem introduces and so aptly states.

Sway by Tricia Johnson is a collection of poems about the changing seasons and embracing nature from the author’s perspective. Johnson has written this second book of poems; readers who liked her first book, Whirl Away Girl, will enjoy her newest edition.

Johnson’s poems are written almost like a coded diary that is full of emotion and feelings that are deep and guttural and evoke emotions in the reader. The poems are easy to read, but I feel like the poems are open to interpretation. I found one poem blended into another, and without the strong theme of summer, fall, winter, and spring (in that order, I believe), I couldn’t tell one poem from another.

My favorite poem in this book would be Shadows Bold, as it holds a steady rhythm and is easily interpretable. Depicting the snow melting and spring coming alive. I liked how the author began and ended the poem with similar lines, “Sun makes shadows bold… As sun keeps shadows bold.”

I enjoyed the inconsistency of the poems, and it was a pleasant surprise that accompanied each poem. Most of the poems do not rhyme or form a particular structure.

For example, on page 17, the poem does not start with a rhythm; however, if you continue to read, there are two lines that start a rhyme “Nighttime haze/ Your eyes glaze…” Only these two lines, and then the rhythm is dropped. But the author then picks up the rhythm again in a chunk at the end. “Silent prick to eye/Unstoppable weather drifting by/Pop-up storm of emotion/Clouded by such devotion…” And the rhyme is dropped again. This does not follow any structure that I’m familiar with, and I find it interesting.

Sway is a pleasant and light read for those who enjoy poems about nature and enjoy the reflective nature of poetry.

Johnson’s poetry collection tells of boundless fields of wildflowers, icy wooded paths, and other earthly delights.

This book places readers directly into the far-removed natural surroundings of rural Pennsylvania, and its four parts—“Wildflower Bloom,” “Pumpkin Decorum,” “Light Captured Hexagons,” and “Melodious”—address the four seasons. The poet writes mostly in unpunctuated, truncated phrases, and frequently, the stanzas offer nature-themed one-word lines, most notably in “Autumn Pause” and this passage in “Glide”: “A bit of hope dawns / Hushed away here at home / Nature / Walk / Leaf / Color.” However, it’s the lengthier, more intricate poetry that truly shines, with sweet, lyrical lines sprinkled throughout poems such as “A Soft Pearl Sky,” “Pumpkin Latte,” and “Johnny Quill”: “The slow warm up sings in the blood of everything.” Most of Johnson’s poems simply describe a rural setting and the speaker’s feelings while doing such activities as swaying in a hammock or gazing at a moon during a cold night. The poet excels in rare moments that she explores deeper themes of transition, growth, and human nature. In “Traveling Between the Two,” she interweaves the experience of sitting in a “striped sling chair,” “one foot on the ground / one foot in the air” with the excitement and uncertainty of being between two worlds. Similarly, “Half of Me” is an exceptional piece of writing that details the speaker’s feeling of being pulled in different directions, set against the backdrop of sparkling spring rain and flowers. Johnson’s grasp on humankind’s sense of wonder at the mystery of nature is relatable and comforting, and one wishes there were more poems that showcase it. Instead, each of the book’s four parts brings readers to the brink of exploration but recedes back into the tall grass all too soon.

A lyrical, charming set of poems but one that may leave readers wishing for more.

 

 

I couldn’t explain to you my excitement to find this book in my inbox. A book in love with Pennsylvania nature? I live here. I long for each and every moment to be outside, to take in the ways the earth continues to make us.

And along comes Sway, a poetry collection that can place me in a field or on the porch or on the earth somewhere in PA—that which can give me the time to appreciate what’s alive around and within us. This collection is a mood—and a good one at that.

It’s a pleasure to sit in these words for a while. Say you’re cooped up in your house, in the heart of a rainy or overhot or too buggy day. With this slim volume, you can transport yourself to the grass in the sun, to the wind, to the trees and the birds and squirrels.

Sway is a terrific porch companion—to give yourself the time to be outside and to feel outside and to read the words of someone else outside, in their world, on our world, who is experiencing the same and different moments as us.

It’s a connection—what we have in the world together—and this book is a reminder of it, an ode to it.

The book starts off strong with the titular poem, “Sway.” It’s a soft and quiet and sunny day with just the right amount of rhythm. Nature is a collection of all things happening; this poem, along with many others throughout the book, names those things, offers the senses that come along too, and in such a smooth way that we feel a part of it.

And of course—nature isn’t nature without us, so Sway incorporates a number of human-influenced sounds and actions in addition to the non-human nature stuff. Some poems breeze by quickly and easily, some potentially too easy, and others like “Traveler” linger and demand a second read. Lucky for us, it might be even better the second time around.

“A time of plenty in the open wild

Rush out, breath in the audible peace

Palms open receive

And give share in the bounty

Of promises keeping and growth steeping 

To the color of amber.”

With my ever-developing infatuation with nature comes more and more books about nature, and what I enjoy most is the ability to learn more from people who have been attune to its wonder for longer than I have. This isn’t exactly Sway’s impact here. It’s more of a book of the nature of the ordinary—the things we all notice, not necessarily the things we don’t know about that are happening at the same time. At times, I wish I could have seen what I can’t see with nature expertise from the poet, but the mood is worth it all the same.

It doesn’t matter if you’re outside or inside, summer or winter, rain or sun—this collection will be a welcome sight on any nature lover’s nightstand.