Description
Blue Poodle
by Georgia Jones-Davis
$14, paper
Blue Poodle by Georgia Jones-Davis
$14.00
“A poet’s task, among many others, is to trace back the thread, map the events that have shaped her into the person she has/will ultimately become. Georgia Jones-Davis‘s chapbook, Blue Poodle,” accomplishes this feat with a solid, visual gathering of narrative poems that explore her familial history as well as her love of other poets.
Jones-Davis, a literary journalist and former book review editor, has put her talents to good use. Each poem in “Blue Poodle” is carefully crafted, and, surprisingly honest, with a balanced mix of photographic language, tight verse and fierce truths. The end result of “Blue Poodle” can be compared to a poetic short film festival with enough variety to keep the reader engaged: familial disappointment and dysfunction (“Wave Drag,” “Put Me Away” and “Your Father.”); the lasting damage of historical events on a family’s legacy (“Emily at Auschwitz”); seminal events of the author’s youth (“Night of the Nightmares,” “Missing Don Ho” and “The Visitors.”) and poetic homage (“Keats,” “26 Piazza di Spagna” and “Listening to Anne Sexton.”)
There are also a handful of short but lovely “in the moment” pieces where Jones-Davis shares an ephemeral and highly personal glimpse into her private world, as in the poem, “The Day Tumbles Away Like a Butterfly.”
Jones-Davis’ biography mentions that she started to write and publish her work at a young age but, in her college years, was diverted by a discouraging poetry workshop. So she spent the next couple of decades writing literary criticism, living life and raising a family, which, in my opinion, was the right thing to do.
The result is “Blue Poodle,” a triumphant return for Jones-Davis, and a literary gem for poetry lovers.”
–Marie Lecrivain, posted on her blog, “Al Khemia Poetica” April 2012
Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Blue Poodle” is one of those rare treats that a reviewer happens to come across. Included with the text was a handsome little letter from the author informing me that she sent the book at the suggestion of poet Millicent Borges Accardi. Now I am the first to admit that over the years I have gotten many letters from authors for a review of their book. However, it is very rare that the book is a beautifully written as “Blue Poodle.” I think author Georgia Jones-Davis is an outstanding poet with a brave and waiving imagination. Her poem, “Listening to Anne Sexton,” too me by surprise with its lovely lyrics and gripping narrative. I want to tell people that this is an important books of poetry and should definitely be in your collection or the collection of someone you love.
In closing I want to say that “Blue Poodle” took me by surprise. The collection of dreams came rollerskating up my spine and left wanting more. Georgia Jones-Davis is an intelligent and elegant writer of poetry and I hope to see much more of her work. So as I stated previously, buy this book. I don’t care how you do it, its worth the fourteen dollar price and definitely worth the effort.
You won’t be disappointed.
–B.L. Kennedy (The Gypsy Art Show blog)
Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Blue Poodle,” a chapbook by Georgia Jones-Davis, derives its title from a poem by the same name where the poet describes the modeling of mother/daughter dresses at a governor’s tea and introduces the reader to a Valentine’s Day present of a stuffed blue blue poodle of velveteen and fur. The world of the blue poodle seems to be a pretty place where life is normal, but we are thrust in many ways into a surreal, bizarre, and slightly off-kilter world in this collection of poems.
We find poems of dreams and nightmares, and hints at worries and concerns. Something hangs over an abyss where we find loneliness, suicidal tendencies and depression. Georgia’s allusions to other well-known poets such as Stafford, Sexton, Keats, Plath and Hughes are intentional and set up a framework where many of the themes of those poets can be used to layer on to her own imagery. Much of this imagery exists in strange tableaux and the reader is invited into their simple details — white dishes, folded cloth napkins, a wine glass, a bowl of olives, poears in a bowl, sandbox body parts of horned toads, the unblinking eyes of a sleepless shark.
The says in “Put Me Away,” a poem with allusions to Mengele and Zyklon B, “I am de-boned but not de-clawed.” The claw are out an manhy poems shock the reader suddenly, much as Sharon Olds’s work does. Readers are lulled into following a certain narrative and then suddenly three-quarters of the way through, they are side-swiped. In “The Visitors,” there is a surreal visit by three horses to a modern suburb where neighbors herd the animals into a carport. The narrative seems whimsical and Disney-like at first, but Georgia takes from there to a much darker place of blood and a hanging buck in a garage.
We can’t help thinking of “Traveling Through the Dark,” Stafford’s poem, especially since Georgia concluded the collection with “I’d Like to Travel Like William Stafford.” Stafford is a poet who wrote a poem a day, even on the day he died, a poet both of open sky, traveling light and a man rooted “planted as a pine.”
In “Your Father,” Georgia in the voice of her mother takes us on a bitter journey of infidelity with a sustained metaphor of beers and flowers and ends with ‘the whole garden a bed of bitches passing as blossoms.” Some of her poems are less edgy and more lyrical when she describes in “Missing Don Ho” the sensual landscape of Oahu–naughty hulas, lingering aloooohas and a yellow ukulele moon. In both “The Day Tumbles Away Like a Butterfly” and “Even in January” there is a sparse, zen-like quality to the picture she paints — a stoneware bowl, a November gust of wind, chimes, a hesitation, pears gradually ripening in the wind, light as golden Russian tea, an afternoon stealing away behind a hill.
In “Apple Weather” she captures autumn, its loneliness, its gloom, its leafy dust and gives us another tableau set in a grocery store that speaks emotional volumes, “the silent checkers eye the clocks in the Sunday evening gloom.” What a good line! The chapbook is blue, blue as in David Lynch blue, sad guitar blue, and Pablo Picasso blue. You will want to read and reread these poems and sink deeper into them with each encounter.
— David Fraser, April edition of Ascent Aspiration 2012;
Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Blue Poodle,” a recently released chapbook of poems by Georgia Jones-Davis, provides the reader with a rich variety of images, woven together in surprising and provocative rhythms. Some of these poems focus on the relationship between mother and child, but they are so expertly rendered in Jones-Davis’ unique voice that stereotypes are sidestepped.
For example, in “Put Me Away,” an aging mother echoes the sentiment of Sharon Olds in “I Go Back to May 1937”: “Do what you are going to do.” The woman in “Put Me Away” is not a cheery mother: “From the beginning you emptied my life./Now you empty my house–/one chair, one table,/one tooth at a time./You take everything–gold rings, the shoe-maker, France.” As a mother, I read these lines and worry about whether this witty recitation might one day be my own. The speakers recalls that “My childhood was gassed,/not my body,” summing up the violence she has survived only to feel trapped and resentful in her later years.
Next, the mother also rails against the oxygen tube that makes her feel like a dog on a leash–as well as her recognition that she wanted the “roller-skating girl/I was/when I was taken away/from me.” The enormous anger of the mother rollers over this portrayal: “I gained only thirteen pounds with you./I barely gave birth to you at all.” Her separation from her own body and the child of her own body is a bleak evocation of a broken chord between self-identity and maternal responsiveness. An underlying question is the extent to which mothers seek a mirror image of themselves in their daughters.
Another poem that especially effective is “Blue Poodle,” the title poem. A mother and a daughter wear matching dresses with strong implications. Having subjected my own daughter to matching outfits until she put her seven-year-old foot down, I was intrigued by the symbolism, as well as the personal connection I felt to this subject. The poem opens with these lines: “You are girdled in your mother’s/Navajo concho belt/the black leather sleek.” Already the weight and restrictions of the heavy belt pushes down on the reader.
Later in this poem, Jones-Davis moves on to a striking comparison between a mother and a daughter: “At the governor’s tea you modeled/mother-daughter squaw dresses,/pale pink with silver bric-a-brac,/flared by crinoline petticoats. How smug/and pretty she looked, how they flashed,/her conchos, when she swirled./Always small in your mother’s eyes.” The symbolism of the dress as a social front one wears in society is powerful in the vision of the “squaw dresses” and their implicit subjugation to the masculine governor. The mother holds the power of beauty, while the daughter knows she is “always small” in the eyes of the mother.
… Next, Jones-Davis recalls the odd blue poodle toy her mother got her when she was seven: “Valentine’s Day/The legs moved, head swiveled/its tongue a fleck of bright red flanne,/
the cloth of its body trunk velveteen, the curls of its fur/the color of sky/at the first sign of snow.” Mothers and their gifts are sometimes innocent, sometimes weighed with conflict and turmoil.
The conclusion moves on to hold up those conchos from the belt as “full moons that rule the roots of warring women,/unblinking eyes of the sleepless shark,/scallopped blossoms tarnished by years of freezes.” This brilliant comparison plays out the conflict between mother and daughter, the shark of bad dreams, and the “years of freezes” that have damaged the uneding vines that tie these women together.
These narrative poems are only two examples of the depth and symbolic riches that flash in this remarkable collection. Jones-Davis has demonstrated her keen eye again and again throughout this work.
–Kathi Stafford for Rattle online (September 30th, 2011)
Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]
Marie Lecrivain –
Review of Blue Poodle by Marie Lecrivain, posted on her blog, “Al Khemia Poetica” April 2012:
“A poet’s task, among many others, is to trace back the thread, map the events that have shaped her into the person she has/will ultimately become. Georgia Jones-Davis’s chapbook, Blue Poodle,” accomplishes this feat with a solid, visual gathering of narrative poems that explore her familial history as well as her love of other poets.
Jones-Davis, a literary journalist and former book review editor, has put her talents to good use. Each poem in “Blue Poodle” is carefully crafted, and, surprisingly honest, with a balanced mix of photographic language, tight verse and fierce truths. The end result of “Blue Poodle” can be compared to a poetic short film festival with enough variety to keep the reader engaged: familial disappointment and dysfunction (“Wave Drag,” “Put Me Away” and “Your Father.”);
the lasting damage of historical events on a family’s legacy (“Emily at Auschwitz”); seminal events of the author’s youth (“Night of the Nightmares,” “Missing Don Ho” and “The Visitors.”) and poetic homage (“Keats,” “26 Piazza di Spagna” and “Listening to Anne Sexton.”)
There are also a handful of short but lovely “in the moment” pieces where Jones-Davis shares an ephemeral and highly personal glimpse into her private world, as in the poem, “The Day Tumbles Away Like a Butterfly.”
Jones-Davis’ biography mentions that she started to write and publish her work at a young age but, in her college years, was diverted by a discouraging poetry workshop. So she spent the next couple of decades writing literary criticism, living life and raising a family, which, in my opinion, was the right thing to do.
The result is “Blue Poodle,” a triumphant return for Jones-Davis, and a literary gem for poetry lovers.”
Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]
B.L. Kennedy –
A review of “Blue Poodle” by B.L. Kennedy (The Gypsy Art Show blog)
“Blue Poodle” is one of those rare treats that a reviewer happens to come across. Included with the text was a handsome little letter from the author informing me that she sent the book at the suggestion of poet Millicent Borges Accardi. Now I am the first to admit that over the years I have gotten many letters from authors for a review of their book. However, it is very rare that the book is a beautifully written as “Blue Poodle.” I think author Georgia Jones-Davis is an outstanding poet with a brave and waiving imagination. Her poem, “Listening to Anne Sexton,” too me by surprise with its lovely lyrics and gripping narrative. I want to tell people that this is an important books of poetry and should definitely be in your collection or the collection of someone you love.
In closing I want to say that “Blue Poodle” took me by surprise. The collection of dreams came rollerskating up my spine and left wanting more. Georgia Jones-Davis is an intelligent and elegant writer of poetry and I hope to see much more of her work. So as I stated previously, buy this book. I don’t care how you do it, its worth the fourteen dollar price and definitely worth the effort.
You won’t be disappointed.
Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]
David Fraser –
Blue Poodle — review by David Fraser, April edition of Ascent Aspiration 2012;
“Blue Poodle,” a chapbook by Georgia Jones-Davis, derives its title from a poem by the same name where the poet describes the modeling of mother/daughter dresses at a governor’s tea and introduces the reader to a Valentine’s Day present of a stuffed blue blue poodle of velveteen and fur. The world of the blue poodle seems to be a pretty place where life is normal, but we are thrust in many ways into a surreal, bizarre, and slightly off-kilter world in this collection of poems.
We find poems of dreams and nightmares, and hints at worries and concerns. Something hangs over an abyss where we find loneliness, suicidal tendencies and depression. Georgia’s allusions to other well-known poets such as Stafford, Sexton, Keats, Plath and Hughes are intentional and set up a framework where many of the themes of those poets can be used to layer on to her own imagery. Much of this imagery exists in strange tableaux and the reader is invited into their simple details — white dishes, folded cloth napkins, a wine glass, a bowl of olives, poears in a bowl, sandbox body parts of horned toads, the unblinking eyes of a sleepless shark.
The says in “Put Me Away,” a poem with allusions to Mengele and Zyklon B, “I am de-boned but not de-clawed.” The claw are out an manhy poems shock the reader suddenly, much as Sharon Olds’s work does. Readers are lulled into following a certain narrative and then suddenly three-quarters of the way through, they are side-swiped. In “The Visitors,” there is a surreal visit by three horses to a modern suburb where neighbors herd the animals into a carport. The narrative seems whimsical and Disney-like at first, but Georgia takes from there to a much darker place of blood and a hanging buck in a garage.
We can’t help thinking of “Traveling Through the Dark,” Stafford’s poem, especially since Georgia concluded the collection with “I’d Like to Travel Like William Stafford.” Stafford is a poet who wrote a poem a day, even on the day he died, a poet both of open sky, traveling light and a man rooted “planted as a pine.”
In “Your Father,” Georgia in the voice of her mother takes us on a bitter journey of infidelity with a sustained metaphor of beers and flowers and ends with ‘the whole garden a bed of bitches passing as blossoms.” Some of her poems are less edgy and more lyrical when she describes in “Missing Don Ho” the sensual landscape of Oahu–naughty hulas, lingering aloooohas and a yellow ukulele moon. In both “The Day Tumbles Away Like a Butterfly” and “Even in January” there is a sparse, zen-like quality to the picture she paints — a stoneware bowl, a November gust of wind, chimes, a hesitation, pears gradually ripening in the wind, light as golden Russian tea, an afternoon stealing away behind a hill.
In “Apple Weather” she captures autumn, its loneliness, its gloom, its leafy dust and gives us another tableau set in a grocery store that speaks emotional volumes, “the silent checkers eye the clocks in the Sunday evening gloom.” What a good line! The chapbook is blue, blue as in David Lynch blue, sad guitar blue, and Pablo Picasso blue. You will want to read and reread these poems and sink deeper into them with each encounter.
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars! [5 of 5 Stars!]
Kathi Stafford –
Review by Kathi Stafford for Rattle online (September 30th, 2011):
“Blue Poodle,” a recently released chapbook of poems by Georgia Jones-Davis, provides the reader with a rich variety of images, woven together in surprising and provocative rhythms. Some of these poems focus on the relationship between mother and child, but they are so expertly rendered in Jones-Davis’ unique voice that stereotypes are sidestepped.
For example, in “Put Me Away,” an aging mother echoes the sentiment of Sharon Olds in “I Go Back to May 1937”: “Do what you are going to do.” The woman in “Put Me Away” is not a cheery mother: “From the beginning you emptied my life./Now you empty my house–/one chair, one table,/one tooth at a time./You take everything–gold rings, the shoe-maker, France.” As a mother, I read these lines and worry about whether this witty recitation might one day be my own. The speakers recalls that “My childhood was gassed,/not my body,” summing up the violence she has survived only to feel trapped and resentful in her later years.
Next, the mother also rails against the oxygen tube that makes her feel like a dog on a leash–as well as her recognition that she wanted the “roller-skating girl/I was/when I was taken away/from me.” The enormous anger of the mother rollers over this portrayal: “I gained only thirteen pounds with you./I barely gave birth to you at all.” Her separation from her own body and the child of her own body is a bleak evocation of a broken chord between self-identity and maternal responsiveness. An underlying question is the extent to which mothers seek a mirror image of themselves in their daughters.
Another poem that especially effective is “Blue Poodle,” the title poem. A mother and a daughter wear matching dresses with strong implications. Having subjected my own daughter to matching outfits until she put her seven-year-old foot down, I was intrigued by the symbolism, as well as the personal connection I felt to this subject. The poem opens with these lines: “You are girdled in your mother’s/Navajo concho belt/the black leather sleek.” Already the weight and restrictions of the heavy belt pushes down on the reader.
Later in this poem, Jones-Davis moves on to a striking comparison between a mother and a daughter: “At the governor’s tea you modeled/mother-daughter squaw dresses,/pale pink with silver bric-a-brac,/flared by crinoline petticoats. How smug/and pretty she looked, how they flashed,/her conchos, when she swirled./Always small in your mother’s eyes.” The symbolism of the dress as a social front one wears in society is powerful in the vision of the “squaw dresses” and their implicit subjugation to the masculine governor. The mother holds the power of beauty, while the daughter knows she is “always small” in the eyes of the mother.
… Next, Jones-Davis recalls the odd blue poodle toy her mother got her when she was seven: “Valentine’s Day/The legs moved, head swiveled/its tongue a fleck of bright red flanne,/
the cloth of its body trunk velveteen, the curls of its fur/the color of sky/at the first sign of snow.” Mothers and their gifts are sometimes innocent, sometimes weighed with conflict and turmoil.
The conclusion moves on to hold up those conchos from the belt as “full moons that rule the roots of warring women,/unblinking eyes of the sleepless shark,/scallopped blossoms tarnished by years of freezes.” This brilliant comparison plays out the conflict between mother and daughter, the shark of bad dreams, and the “years of freezes” that have damaged the uneding vines that tie these women together.
These narrative poems are only two examples of the depth and symbolic riches that flash in this remarkable collection. Jones-Davis has demonstrated her keen eye again and again throughout this work.
Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]