Review by Midwest Book Review Critic: Laurel Johnsom

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   Washing the Stones
   Poetry by Linda Larson
   ISBN 978-0-9795313-1-6
   90 pages at $10 paperback
   Ibbetson Street Press
   25 School Street
   Somerville MA 02143
   www.ibbetsonstreetpress.com

   Linda Larson has worn many hats in life: feature writer for  ewspapers; editor and contributor for Spare Change, a homeless newspaper; advocate for people with mental illness; teaching fellow in the creative writing doctoral program the University of Southern Mississippi. She's struggled through dark times of mental illness, homelessness, and addiction and managed to retainher compassion and empathy. The good and bad times in life have made her what she is as a human and placed a shine on this fine book of poetry.

   Ms. Larson lays a telling groundwork for her future life in the poem about her difficult birth and her mother's memory of it. "The Birthday Girl" is a powerful, spare, haunting poem. I quote one excerpt here:

   Mother would tell me the story
   Over and over again when she was woozy
   Bourbon and water calling the shots.

   Her father's legacy is a gift the poet holds close to her heart. Every word of "Dad Revisited" is crafted to express his effect on Larson's life:

   This love is a stillness
   And a light behind the eyes,
   This breath, a journey.

   Her compassion for humanity is clear in "Aquarius" and foretells her advocacy for the homeless and unfortunate in our midst. In this exceptional poem, rich with metaphors, she watches over and worries about an old man
with ice freezing in his beard:

   When winter dies I will weep for him
   One blonde diamond.
   I study him from the window; I am his protégée.
   Unbeknownst to me,
   In training for a part in his play.

   I will be cast finally as the bag lady of hearts.
   Hearts will become my stock and trade,
   My baggage.

   "Schizophrenia With Features of Unrequited Love" is the raw, beautiful recollection of madness, survival, abandonment, isolation and loss. Caged in a state mental hospital, numbed by grief and electric shock therapy, Larson fights to maintain her memories and dignity. One excerpt cannot do justice to this amazing poem but I chose a verse that best reflects the writer's spirit:

   When I would wake up beside you
   My shattered self,
   Your gentleness would calm me.
   I would peep out at your cotton-soft eyes
   From the cave of my hungry, incipient madness.
   Where I am now without your compass,
   Refusing, straightjacket or not,
   To love the one I'm with.

   Washing the Stones exorcises Larson's demons through words torn from thevery marrow of her being. Despite the losses and troubles that might have broken a lesser spirit, she holds onto love and friendship and sees with clear eyes the beauty around her. My congratulations to Linda Larson for
this stunning book and to Ibbetson Street Press for publishing it. Highlyrecommended.
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