Memory House

Elizabeth St Jacques is the author of Dance of Light and Around the Tree
of Light.

Carolyn Zonailo, the author of 13 previous books, describes herself as a
lyric poet who uses memory and personal experience in order “to shed
light on our collective human experience.” The 26 poems in this
collection succeed in doing just that.

In the first group of poems, subtitled “In the House of God,” the
poet as wife/mother/friend/observer experiences pain, loneliness, and
rejection, and derives comfort and strength from memories that harbor
“a green space to enter, / a quiet space to rest” (“Among
Strangers”). When beauty and love weave through her world, “the
unseen / mystery of it all” is cherished (“A Summer Swim”).

In the last section of the book, “In the House of Childhood
Dreams,” Zonailo revisits a rich storehouse filled with such
delightful childhood memories as her bedroom in the attic, a witch
house, her Grandpa’s summer visits, junk collections, and the values
of her Russian family. But Zonailo is not blind to imperfection. In
“Old Photographs,” for example, she sees herself from the ages of 20
to 40, her eyes forever imploring the photographer to see that “a
space inside of me / was made for you alone to enter.”

Zonailo’s poems ring like mellow bells—clean, vivid, vibrant,
brilliant. Running through this deceptively simple collection are deep
currents that embrace humankind as a whole, and that issue a plea to
keep sacred “the child’s dreaming soul.”