Why We Never Visited the Elms by Marianne Szlyk
Source: Purchased Paperback, 37 pgs. I am an Amazon Affiliate
Why We Never Visited the Elms by Marianne Szlyk are poems that explore what could have been to what is now. Each poem is a journey, a microcosm of the larger journey the collection takes the reader on. The journey begins with the narrator and her mother and why they never visited Our Lady of the Elms, where her mother went to college. She reminisces about the stories she heard and how the college was nestled into a neighborhood. There's almost a romanticism in these stories, but Szlyk reminds us that not all is rosy in that past, just like it isn't in the present. "Every Friday the cafeteria would serve/slices of greasy hamburg pizza/that Mom would have pretended to eat//had we stopped by her old school.//" (pg. 3-4)
Just as in "Fishing," the narrator says, "The surface hides mud, weeds, a murder victim./No one fishes now ..." (pg. 5) We look back on our own histories with fondness, even if there is darkness in those old streets and rivers. We can look at those places now with a distance, glossing over a darkness and lifting out the good parts. Szlyk has a knack for exploring the what ifs and that what weres and the what ares. Time slips easily in these poems, and readers can slip behind the curtains to explore places in different times to see change and what stays the same.
Why We Never Visited the Elms by Marianne Szlyk is a time slip. Readers will love the optimism Szlyk imbues her poems with, reminding us that we should focus on the light we have and not the darkest parts of our lives.
RATING: Quatrain
Other Reviews:
About the Poet:
Marianne Szlyk’s most recent book is Poetry en Plein Air (Pony One Dog Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual, the Red Eft Poetry Review, the Trouvaille Review, and other journals/websites. Some poems have been translated into Polish, Italian, and Cherokee. She lives in the D.C. area with the wry poet and flash fiction writer Ethan Goffman and their elderly cat.