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Heart Murmur by Michael LaSorsa Steffen Bordighera Press
book review by J. Alpha
"'Please listen, as our options have changed.' Just by pressing buttons, I can go where I want. I'm told my call is important, so I wait for the next available representative. Then a voice says my call will be monitored to ensure the quality of their service. This is no longer about me."
In Heart Murmur, Michael LaSorsa Steffen's newest collection of over thirty poems, readers can "go where they want," as they explore the quality of his well-crafted words, representing a wide range of poetic options, of varying lengths, themes, moods, and tones With its literary strength well-grounded in Steffen's authentic voice, this collection of poems draws readers in through the eyes and mind of a quintessential prose poet.
There is his unflinchingly intimate description of the doctor who was about to pry open his ribcage as "gowned and gloved, his scalpel poised above me like a beak" in the poem titled "Pre-Op." And in another poem titled "Spacious Skies," Steffen displays the power of the brevity of a few well chosen words in his distant observation of the 9/11 tragedy... "to watch on TV the moment the towers dissolved, all that dust drifting down on Manhattan."
Toward the end of the collection, in his meta poem "Still Point"—a poem about writing a poem—Steffen writes that it seems that "with each stanza someone new arrives in his life," an apt reflection of how readers new to Steffen's work will feel as they delve into his authentically rendered collection of vibrant and emotionally relevant poems.
In the same manner that medical "heart murmurs" are classified—by intensity, pitch, and quality—the symphony of universal emotions conveyed in Steffen's Heart Murmur, will surely circulate through reader's minds and throughout repeated readings and translations.
Heart Murmur is Michael LaSorsa Steffen's second collection of poems, and it is preceded by No Good at Sea published by Legible Press, 2002.