
The Light Tears Loose
Kb Ballentine
(Author)Description
Sky, trees, water, birds: though nature appears everywhere in Ballentine's work, it rarely does so for its own sake. It is more symbolic of internal or external struggle, development, and thought rather than "pretty" detail.
The poems in The Light Tears Loose move from illustrations of light into dark - then darker -territory before it morphs back to light. Past and present circumstances often feel overwhelming, but it is in seeking that "silver lining" that we find reason to move forward, to keep going when the way seems vague or threatening. Our fear in living does not keep us from experiencing love and beauty, friendship and brightness along the way.
As witnesses in the world, by connecting with nature, we can indulge ourselves with rest and renewal because we see it happen day after day, season after season. Darkness and winter come to us all but so do sunshine and spring. This is what we hold on to, even when the shadows creep so close we can't breathe. Keep moving forward: on the other side is the light.
Product Details
Publisher | Blue Light Press |
Publish Date | July 02, 2019 |
Pages | 102 |
Language | English |
Type | |
EAN/UPC | 9781421836324 |
Dimensions | 9.0 X 6.0 X 0.2 inches | 0.3 pounds |
Reviews
In The Light Tears Loose, KB Ballentine
explores the physical and psychic gradations
of light and dark with a naturalist's eye for
exquisite detail and a musician's ear for the
sonic power of language to carry meaning.
In these poems, self and nature reveal themselves
in the flux of creation and destruction,
torn loose from their immersion in the daily
sensual world. Continuing her search for
mystical union, Ballentine faces loss with
spare lyricism and haunting grace. The
book's profound embodiment in the natural
world serves as ballast and celebration.
Teresa Cader
Light and dark tug each other's sleeve in KB Ballentine's luminous collection,
The Light Tears Loose, each a pulse in the literal and the emotional landscape.
And both must be present if we are to grow and heal, an arc of shadow
within and without, "as we lean / into the wind, knowing this road will lead
us home." Amid the opposites that weave us into ourselves, we must carry
this knowing as both the "snowdrift and starlight ascending." Read, as Frost
writes, "and be whole again beyond confusion."
Linda Parsons, author of Candescent and This Shaky Earth
In this sixth collection of poems, KB uses her remarkable gifts of observation
and words to capture and remind the reader of the beauty around us: stones
softened with moss; the wrens' psalm; winter's brittle breath still sculpting
field and forest. But just as fog silences the crescent moon, the poet exhorts
us to enjoy this beauty now, for life is finite and the journey fraught with
sorrow, pain, and aging: the next world stenciled under the skin.
Jim Johnston, author of Exile Revisited and The Price of Peace
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