By Lynette G. Esposito
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If This Isn’t Love by Susana H. Case, published by Broadstone Books, Frankfort, Kentucky serves up sass and sincerity according to Denise Duhamel, author of Second Story. Case presents subjects both personal and universal that leave the reader admiring her use of language and her understanding of the human condition. In her free verse- poem, Bone Church on page ten, the narrator details the religious activities, by time and place, of the faithful who bring the bones of their ancestors to the town square.
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In San Bernardino alle Ossa,
Milano as in other ossuaries,
the bones of the dead are placed
into designs—crosses
formed with skulls and flourishes
made from tibiae and femurs
under the vaulted dark wood.
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Case visualizes in her thirty-one-line one-stanza poem the faith and reverence of ancestor’s bones kept close and exhibited in public displays of love and respect. The History Channel has shown these people with their families of flesh and life carrying and showing off the bones of those who came before…bones not hidden in a tomb but shared in the open air and embellished with many ordinate memories and keepsakes.
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In San Bernadino alle Ossa
on all Souls Day they say
a little girl comes back
to life and dances
with fellow skeletons.
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This skillful ending to the poem brings the living and the dead into one realm. Case has a light touch to a complicated understanding of religious ritual.
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In her poem, Substitute Teacher on page thirty -six, the disorientation of a substitute teacher trying to do her job has just a touch of irony and a whisk of humor.
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I was nineteen in Ohio.
Mornings, the phone rang with my assignment
I’d run down the hill to catch the bus—
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As in Bone Church, Case has set a visual time and place. The situation is clear. A young person is available for whatever assignment he or she is given and has to make it work. Each day, the bus may be different that must be caught to get to work.
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a different school most mornings—
clutching a bag of M & M’s for lunch.
Principals advised, just keep the students quiet.
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The choice of students this young substitute deals with have issues and the narrator gives the example of a boy needing to go to the bathroom and is not allowed. He wets himself and his classmates laugh. He cries. The substitute cries all the way home, The poem is like a metaphor for life and how one makes life work—or not.
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The final poem in this collection on page seventy-eight, deals with one’s expectations on how they think their life will turn out. Case entitles the poem Steps and uses the image of a treacherous mountain trail to make her point in this one-stanza narrative. She begins:
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I have forgotten how many steps
it takes to descend this treacherous trail
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The poem is a journey on a mountain side where donkeys traversed the various dangers and ends with:
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— to you & to the foolish girl who thought
She might be alone the rest of her life but ended up
fine, happy even, pausing to steady herself,
to squint at the impossible blue.
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It is a love poem and a lovely way to end this quirky book of verse that is unafraid to suggest and to answer some big questions as we journey both up and down the mountain.
Case is skillful with language and images. She has a light touch and allows readers to interpret as they meander through each work. The book is a pleasure.
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You can find the book here: IF THIS ISN’T LOVE, poetry by Susana H. Case — Broadstone Books
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Lynette G. Esposito has been an Adjunct Professor at Rowan University, Burlington County and Camden County Colleges. She has taught creative writing and conducted workshops in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Mrs. Esposito holds a BA in English from the University of Illinois and an MA in Creative Writing and English Literature from Rutgers University. Her articles have appeared in the national publication, Teaching for Success; regionally in South Jersey Magazine, SJ Magazine. Delaware Valley Magazine, and her essays have appeared in Reader’s Digest and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her poetry has appeared in US1, SRN Review, The Fox Chase Review, Bindweed Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, That Literary Review, The Remembered Arts Journal, and other literary magazines. She has critiqued poetry for local and regional writer’s conferences and served as a panelist and speaker at local and national writer’s conferences. She lives in Mount Laurel, NJ
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North of Oxford 