SELF PORTRAIT by Barbara Mercer
Foreword by Maria Cristina Azcona
Barbara Mercer’s book of poetry may be considered a perfect ensemble of the reflection of her own livable experiences and her aesthetic sensibility, as a painter who at the same time, is a poetess. The book is an artistic self-biography where all the awesome skills of the author conforms an aquarelle of incredible value around her own life remembrances.
The poems flow sweetly, naturally, in front of the reader eyes, exposing her story to several levels of interpretation. Visually, melodiously, conceptually, we roam through the sidewalks and paths of her own personality that is present all the time in her constructions.
We are able to live her memories through this narration, and through that description, since she wants as to enter this journey, deliberately. She recreates the scenes and the sensations that marked her destiny, intending us to understand, to comprehend why she became a painter and a poetess.
We can include her magnificent work in postmodern poetry, because it develops all the characteristics of this style.
In this sense, we find a particular way of cutting the edges of the verses.
The February
storm
She uses alliterations (in this case T) and redundancies of words, that are full of sense, like “fate”.
Fate has a timing
Adjust to the time
Furthermore, we may enumerate also the description of reality from a conceptual point of view that includes a subliminal ecological critic.
Sawdust is flying
Smog
persisting
In fourth place, we find the inner rhythm, which is a musical constant in her poetry.
A jig is being jigged
Barbara is a consecrated painter, and this particularity creates in her poetry, a visual kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, of incredible beauty, where music is not absent from the
landscape of her life, brilliant under the rainbow, which is her palette of colors.
Today it is mine
Red! Red! Red!
Her verses are full of meanings, sensations, images and metaphors, in a wonderful synthesis, the poem itself.
As a reader, I loved in her verses the perfect harmony among rhythm, colors, comparisons and visual images. She is able to manage timing of each particular syllable, and its conjunction in the group of words, into the line. This author shows an experienced hand when she writes the poem in apparently casual sequences that are truly born in her soul and will. She gains the attention as a talented poetess who is owner of our more distinguished respect.
I am deeply convinced that Poetry is the language of spirituality, the verbal tool of angels and the inspiration of lovers. A good poem is a beautiful pond where profound meanings float like petals. Sometimes, the conglomerate of words is a not owner of mysterious beauty, a small fairy who escapes from the hand of many poets.
In contrary, in her book, the most exigent reader of poetry will be able to enjoy the melodious sounds that surge like an audible stream in each poetical scheme.
While reading, you will enter an enchanting world full of richness: Barbara Mercer’s life itself, visible, audible, enjoyable, without pause, restless. A life story of a true artist.
Maria Cristina Azcona
Maria Cristina Azcona is an internationally published writer and bilingual poetess born in Argentina, who is also Editorial Advisor to the Taj Mahal Review. She is a Peace Literature expert to the encyclopedia EOLSS (UK). Her poems and literary articles can be read in many magazines and newspapers around US, UK, Brazil, Jordan, India and her own country. She has authored a novel, an essay and three books of poems, including the poetry collection Window to Heaven, also published by Cyberwit.net.
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