Pansies

Love this book. Short sweet vignettes from an extraordinary poet. Read them all in a day. Hard to stop. Gave the book already as a Holiday gift. In Pansies—where the beautiful soft faces, all clustered and growing, turn up— we can see, through a young babysitter from a cultural group the author barely knew, sweet tastes from a fresh way of life, including choices she might instead have crititicized. What she discovers is another and at times rather wondrous world for children and adults near the same location where she was living (so much do we all miss, and so much of the time). Insight comes through miniature touches and choices in daily life, cooking, playing, listening, a surprising wedding, and even re-outfitting Barbie dolls. We learn through surprise, even shock at times, and more often through a subtlety of expression that goes deep to our unconscious minds. We discover the small daughter’s enchantment and our own. We readers in turn see more of our own world. One might revere some practices and customs but not all—and why would we? We all have our own paths. Yet here along with a new freshness and creativity in the smallest thing we may take for granted (or buy uncritically at a store), comes a promise of life more connected and freshly caring, and with all those we know, in our everyday moments. There are ways we can be more intimate with earth and each other, even while living in huge growing families and large interconnected communities. The book’s promises, for instance of a meeting with the babysitter and some new children, has the author’s 3 year old jumping like a “pogo stick.” For me, above all, and even now, the vignette called Fwa Fwa Doah, brings tears.

This is a lovely collection of heartfelt stories.

This book does not claim to be poetry, but it is written by a poet and it begins with a powerful image, comparing the children of a large family to pansies, which “are a persistent breed. They take to the same soil, year after year.” If you didn’t read the back of the book it would take you until the third of these crafted vignettes to find out what is going on; this is the story of a compassionate woman who needs a babysitter and ends up learning about a sub-culture very different from her own. The young woman she hires teaches her bit by bit about another way of living, of understanding one’s place in the world.Young people, who only hear bad stories about different peoples, such as Muslims or unwanted immigrants, should read this book. So should those who are older and weary of bad news. The writing is concise, elegant, and honest about the narrator’s mistakes and misunderstandings, as well as about the limits to the relationship.

I love this book! Like pansies, this book is delicate and I stopped to savor each finely woven vignette. The vignettes are skillfully compressed moments in a life, and they are eminently readable and relatable. A reviewer, on the back of the book, called these “soul songs” and I agree.