"Do not
hurry your journey," the poet says midway through this stunning collection. "Better
if it lasts for years, so you arrive / laden with all you've lost along the
way." Bonnie Naradzay's journey-as mother, professional, teacher, and longtime
volunteer, leading poetry sessions in prisons, a retirement community, and
among the homeless-has gathered much of both the lost and found, culminating in
the publication of Invited to the Feast, a collection of poems and
literary debut coming in her eightieth year.
With wisdom
gleaned over time and craft honed over decades, Naradzay presents us with poems
that range from dank encampments under city bridges to windswept Irish cliffs
and Venetian vistas, finding a common human thread in street talk and the
classic tropes of our shared literary heritage.
Invited to
the Feast is divided
into three sections, each beginning with an epigraph that serves as a guide to
reading each part. The poems collected here immerse the reader in the
experience of interactive poetry classes, laments for mentors and family
members who have gone, and far-flung travels. Free verse consorts with a
diversity of forms, including the villanelle, ghazal, pantoum, and sestina.
Throughout
this collection we sense that, despite loss and brokenness, love is still
possible, and every one of us has been invited to this feast.
