Let My Ears Be Open by Elizabeth J. Coleman

Coleman´s poems cover a large spectrum but if I were to chose my favorites, narrow that range of glorious colors down, I would chose the poems about cancer in herself and in friends. They cut into the flesh so cleanly, you are only suddenly aware of the pain, the shrill thrill of it, the gut gouging fear, half way through.
–Karen Swenson

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

“There’s a wide geography of landscape and heart in these poems, moments of recognition and kindness between strangers, and a deep empathy that crosses borders. Elizabeth Coleman’s ears are indeed open—to music, to the grief of others, and to the wit and love that keep this world from freezing over. ‘Please give me one phrase played perfectly, just one,,’ she prays in the first poem. But this book answers back, ‘One? How about hundreds, each one generous, deep and sweet!'”
–Betsy Sholl

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

“At the beginning of her compelling Let My Ears Be Open Elizabeth Coleman prays for only ‘one phrase played / perfectly,’ but delivers instead a magnificent symphony that gathers its notes from places like New York, France, and Africa, from family, and from current history. In other words, this is a terrific book whose music plays off against ‘the randomness of love,’ whether it be for an abandoned animal on the Serengeti, a homeless soul back home, or parents, children, and husband. What makes her music so powerful is the way all these disparate elements come together to also acknowledge the silences between notes, between poems and lines, in order to get at the unspoken, for language is a palimpsest, as she says, just as music is, and beneath it all are the truths of the heart that are sounded the way ‘trees write their secret message across the sky.’ And that indeed is a message that bears hearing.”
–Richard Jackson

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]