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Begging to be spoken, written,
Immortalized before forgotten.
A poem is a fleeting memory,
It must be captured in its fullness,
When it is rising."
For a long time, journalist and Immigration Attorney Sharon D. Greenspan has been storing her private thoughts and emotions in the realm of poetry. This volume, her first, represents many aspects of her life, during which she has undergone multiple challenges. Child of immigrant parents, she had a successful career but was not always so lucky in love, then met the right man and had a child; and for some time she has struggled to overcome effects of chronic fatigue syndrome. Her poems reflect these diverse experiences, the sections including "The Immigrant Experience: My Life and Times as an Attorney," "Love, Love, Love," "On Judaism and Spirituality," and "On Poetry and Writing." Her verses celebrate her friends and family, especially her daughter Samantha: "In her room I smell her pillow, kiss her pictures…; she laments her age: "I am 62. Will turn 63. No big parties thrown for me anymore."
Greenspan's poems are poignant at times, at other times whimsical, almost fey. She clearly enjoys writing them. She has organized her work well and included both intimate thoughts about her relationships, grander themes such as 9-11, and the foundation of the state of Israel. The majority of her poems are free verse; those read far more smoothly than the few that rhyme in tightly scanned lines. The works in general have the quality of finding oneself in the middle of a movie, and, from a few snippets, trying to guess the over-arching plot. Taken together, they tell her stories with verve and charm. Her collection will be appreciated by her family and her many friends, and may give her a vehicle to move into a different sort of intellectual life as she backs away from a dynamic career.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review