The Blue Moon Review

Flying Blind
by Sharon Bryan
Sarabande Books, 1996
66 pp., $12.95 paperback.

Reviewed by Fiona Drayton Russell

Because poems are small in contrast to other forms of literature, like novels or even short stories, poets select and place every word in every poem with delicate but precise intent. So naturally, poets have heightened attention to the intricacies of words, their sounds, and their effects. The poems in Flying Blind celebrate language at the most basic level of sound. Prefixes, suffixes, individual words, parts of speech and verb tenses, and the full-fledged sentence are all masterfully honored for their place in our language while artfully appearing within the poems themselves. Poetry "about" language is difficult to create with subtlety (often the reader feels that the author is making the play on words just to show off his or her cleverness), but Sharon Bryan achieves this subtlety in almost every piece.
Although the title of "Subjunctive" might evoke memories of your high school English grammar class, the poem is a beautiful exploration of how people wish to control what might have been:
If only it were true
that someone's death
was in the cards,

in the stars,
we wouldn't torment ourselves
going over each detail

that led up to it,
trying to change something....
Unlike most full-sized books of poetry, Flying Blind is not divided into sections; instead, the poems appear in alphabetical order. This unbroken flow of poems parallels Bryan's style of writing: Most of her poems, which are sometimes long, are single sentences. Reading the first few, I felt a little breathless trying to keep up, but the language sweeps the reader along like a current; fighting for a stopping point would ruin the experience of the poem. The poems draw sharp images less through description than through the sounds of the words themselves; the wonderful first line of "High Heels" reads "They can dent cement". Many of the poems speak our most private vanities and fears, particularly about our own mortality. "Beyond Recall" begins
Nothing matters
to the dead,
that's what's so hard

for the rest of us
to take in--
their complete indifference

to our enticements,
our attempts to get in touch--
they aren't observing us

from a discreet distance,
they aren't listening
to a word we say--

you know that,
but you don't believe it....

In a similar vein, "Beholden" addresses our egotistical need to believe that our whole lives are somehow watched and recorded as important, "thus the joy beyond reason/ when an old friend takes you/ for the person you used to be,// or a total stranger smiles/ and says Hello and wants nothing/ in return but to have caught// your eye in passing."

Although much of the book tackles such weighty thoughts in a direct fashion, Bryan is not afraid to have fun with a poem. "Sweater Weather: A Love Song to Language" is a spirited and lyrical collection of words. The last two verses:

flibbertigibbet, honky-tonk,
spic and span, handyman,
cool as a cucumber, blue moon,

high as a kite, night and noon,
love me or leave me, seventh heaven,
up and about, over and out.