Description
Leaving the Pony
by Cassandra Robison
$14, paper
Born 1949 in Jamestown, New York, Cassandra Johnson Robison is a daughter and granddaughter of Swedish immigrants. She is a graduate of the State University of New York, Fredonia, (B.A., English, summa cum laude); the University of Arizona (M.Ed., English) and Walden University (Ph.D., Education). Two additional books are forthcoming in 2009/2010: No Small Deaths and Memory of Light.
Since 2002, Robison has taught creative writing, English, and American Literature at Central Florida Community College in Ocala where she is an associate professor. Dr. Robison is faculty advisor for the award-winning student literary magazine, Imprints and active in the Florida Community College Press Association. She is the founding editor of Magnolia: A Florida Journal of Literary and Fine Arts. Previously, she taught Advanced Placement English at Jamestown High School (NY) and American Literature and English at Manatee Community College, Bradenton, Florida.
Robert Temple (verified owner) –
Leaving the Pony: a Review
by Robert Temple
In his “Preface” to his and Samuel Coleridge’s revolutionary Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth wrote that good poetry is “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Leaving the Pony by Cassandra Robison embodies that aesthetic. Each poem is a memory imbued with time and place. Typical of these memories, “713” is an imagist ode to Cassandra’s childhood home in Upstate New York. The house is described as, “A pole green bean,” instantly combining a beautiful color with food for a new cycle of growth—her childhood. But that color/taste imagery also serves to personify the house with the character of her family. With its “boxcar rooms,” the house evokes the practicality of her Swedish immigrant grandparents, while the natural beauty of the land enfolds the house with its “artesian springs, ripe with wild, unfurling ferns . . . yellow dandelions, the lavender Iris rising.” All this imagist combination of beauty and practicality leads to her conclusion that “From 50 years away” the memory of that place and time still nourishes her life.
The time and setting of these poems alternate between Upstate New York and Southwest Florida. Some are melancholy reflections on the hard nature of her life experiences, others soft remembrances of sweet, little moments that sustain her. I highly recommend Cassandra Robison’s chapbook, published by Finishing Line Press. Order online at http://www.finishinglinepress.com
Robert Temple (verified owner) –
In his “Preface” to his and Samuel Coleridge’s revolutionary Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth wrote that good poetry is “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Leaving the Pony by Cassandra Robison embodies that aesthetic. Each poem is a memory imbued with time and place. Typical of these memories, “713” is an imagist ode to Cassandra’s childhood home in Upstate New York. The house is described as, “A pole green bean,” instantly combining a beautiful color with food for a new cycle of growth—her childhood. But that color/taste imagery also serves to personify the house with the character of her family. With its “boxcar rooms,” the house evokes the practicality of her Swedish immigrant grandparents, while the natural beauty of the land enfolds the house with its “artesian springs, ripe with wild, unfurling ferns . . . yellow dandelions, the lavender Iris rising.” All this imagist combination of beauty and practicality leads to her conclusion that “From 50 years away” the memory of that place and time still nourishes her life.
The time and setting of these poems alternate between Upstate New York and Southwest Florida. Some are melancholy reflections on the hard nature of her life experiences, others soft remembrances of sweet, little moments that sustain her. I highly recommend Cassandra Robison’s chapbook, published by Finishing Line Press.