"and so it darkens my days
and deepens my night,
and my heart beats fallow
with absent flowers of joy
and buds, empty,
of forgotten promise"
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Scarlet Flow by Elizabeth Clayton Trafford Publishing
book review by John E. Roper
When a person with a talent for combining color and shape skillfully applies paint to a canvas we call what has been created "art." When an individual adept at stringing words and phrases together weaves them into verse we call the result "poetry." But what do we call the fusion of both of these forms of expression? Whatever the proper term may be, the author's collection of illustrated poems is a superb example of it.
A long-time instructor of both Psychology and English at the college level, Clayton shows the influence of her chosen subject areas in her highly introspective and well-crafted writing. Written over a tumultuous period of ten years when she was recovering from the death of her husband and struggling with issues such as a forced early retirement due to an automobile accident and the passing of her mother, many of the pieces are somber and moody, philosophical musings on the nature of existence and death. Others, though, touch on joy, explore family memories, and gleam with a cautious hope. In short, the selections in this work reflect the thoughts of a woman scarred from a series of personal tragedies but determined to surmount them and go on with her life.
Of almost equal importance to the words of this book are Clayton's illustrations. Each poem is either typed or hand written on a backdrop created with media such as oils, acrylics, watercolors, bamboo twigs, and butterfly wings. The end result is a collection of pieces that are as beautiful to the eyes as they are to the heart and mind.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review