POEMS DEAL WITH LOSS OF TREASURED THINGS IN LIFE

by  Jonathan I. Gonzales
El Paso Times, Sept. 30, 2001


  Susan Love Fitts' first book of poems, "Licking the Bones Dry" (Fantasia Music Inc., $14.95), is an offering to all.

  It's a commentary on the universal ritual that we must all take part in - loss. The loss of lovers. The loss of friends. The loss of family. The one event that reoccurs in many of her poems is the ending of marriage.

  In "Night Flight" Fitts writes, "Standing in the shower washing rubbing/ the rubble and remains of a life/ that should never have been born/ from my skin useless it remains/ like the freckles that would never go away..."

  In the poem "Mute" Fitts revisits the subject, "No sound comes from this mouth./ As David hung his harp on the willow tree/ unable to play his strings on command,' neither will the chords of this dispirited soul lift up in song on alien clay."

  However, the most moving poem in the book is "Bobby Barley," a poem that is about much more than the end of a marriage. Bobby Barley has the perfect life - a beautiful wife, three cuddly children and a quaint country home. But one thing he desires above all is for the muses to "shower him with words," so he can receive fame and accolades for his writting. The muses do come to Bobby Barley, and he does become famous, but only after losing his beautiful wife, three cuddly children and his quaint country home.

  Yet beneath the void left by things lost and the pain that fills it, Fitts offers hope. From every ending a new begining is born. Many times this joy of starting over is more glorious than the sorrow one has to endure to get there. The best example of this is the poem "Her Self."  Fitts writes, "He made love to her/ with his eyes/ penetrating the marrow of her/ soul, seeing things/ she never knew were there,/ giving her a self/ she never knew she had."

  In her preface Fitts, who lives in Montgomery, Texas, says each of us wears different masks to "survive the expectations of others and ourselves in this place where we live." By reading these poems, we are forced by Fitts to look within themselves, to shed the masks we wear and to emerge stronger and more willing to learn from the losses we bear.

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Jonathan I. Gonzales is a graduate student in the creative writing program at the University of Texas at El Paso.