Dream Fragments

Poerty. Susan Terris' DREAM FRAGMENTS made me think of classics such as Platero and I or Diary of a Madman, wherein the blizzard of fragments woos us in, creating a high-speed journey of the mind; we are so enthralled by this journey that we don't even notice how or when our heart is broken. What is it? A collection of prose poems? A book of days of a relationship? Snapshots of a marriage? A film-script in verse? Whatever the form, it creates the momentum that's exactly right to depict the chase of memory, the fever of a romance. What is it? Book of soul mates, Terris suggests, and quickly corrects herself: a comedy of 'sole mate, or soul meat.' And where are we? We are in front of two people, on horseback riding across moors, in kayaks, at a hat factory, dancing at the Big Sur river, laughing at Scrabble board. We're in the presence of two people 'buckled into life jackets' even though they are nowhere near water. But, wait, what is it? It is a dream. 'I am in bed, ' the author tells us, 'behind me is a pillow. In the best of all possible worlds, you are on the other side of that pillow.' Indeed. It is an elegy. It is a book to live with. Bravo.--Ilya Kaminsky