As I Was Saying by Constance Wrzesniewski

 

In As I Was Saying Constance Wrzesniewski picks up the conversation started by her first book, Watching Over My Shoulder. Once again she invites us into a world we are eager to inhabit, one of music – Mozart, Cab Calloway, hurdy-gurdy, deep-throated jay, trolley – and life abundant– ginko trees, frangipani, Asian lily, wild rose, not to mention pink typewriters and blue suede shoes.   We travel from East Thompson Street to Whoville, via Platinum City. We meet the Ragman, the Milkman, the Deviled Clam Man. Wrzesnewski says of tenor Mario Lanza: “Every word he sang/was distinct. He owned it.” The same could be said of poet Connie Wrzesniewski. She too makes you “stop and listen.”

–Christopher Bursk, author of Improbable Swervings of Atoms

 

Connie Wrzesniewski’s  As I Was Saying is an enchanting collection of verse, a joy to read.  This, her second book of poems, progresses through time, capturing people, places, sounds, and sights of her growing up in Philadelphia and grown up days.

 

Several poems depict childhood experiences and an atmosphere familiar to city dwellers of her generation. Alive with voices of children, street vendors and deliverymen, they recall the rhythms of a kinder, gentler age.  Hints of a darker side surface in “On the Front Steps.”  “I listened intently to the heartache at hand…”  These poems have the feel of someone who, even in childhood, was acutely sensitive to surroundings and experiences, storing them away, so later they might glow with life and expand with meaning and poignancy in her poems.

 

Succinctly sketched, spot-on portrayals move humorously, into loving renderings of family, and relocation to a suburban, bird-filled garden. Music permeates the voice of the author, bursting forth in “The Deviled Clam Man” who “croons.”  The streetcar bell’s “night music” rings.   The “Ragman” announces his presence “in a high/sing-song pitch.”

 

Famous artists, Elvis Presley, Mozart, Mario Lanza and Miles Davis appear.  Most delightful are the author’s distinctive portraits of her parents: she, a devoted fan of Nelson Eddy; and he of John Philip Sousa’s marches.

 

 

The much admired whimsy of Wrzesniewski’s earlier volume Watching Over My Shoulder continues as she gives new meaning to Dr.Seuss’s “Whoville” and conjures up an Eastern Bazaar in “Rosewater Turkish Delight,” but “Written in Stone,” and its bit of mummy wrappings inhabiting an old clock is not to be overlooked.  It may just be a key to what makes this accomplished author tick.

–Carol Breslin, Ph.D., Professor emerita of English, Gwynedd Mercy University

 

Take stock of who you are / of what you are not is wise advice from Connie Wrzesniewski in her new book, As I Was Saying. Wrzesniewski presents one poet’s rite of passage with remembrances of childhood peddlers as The Hurdy Gurdy Man, to appreciation of her hall mirror whose gilded frame once held a photograph of her beloved grandfather. This framed mirror has followed her on “many moves,” keeping her grandfather—“traveling companion / dear friend”—close to her heart. For the lucky reader, As I Was Saying demonstrates how taking stock becomes a way to discover life’s richness.

–Marie Kane, author of Beauty, You Drive a Hard Bargain