Time and Other Solvents: A Story of Healing by Claudia Gary is a collection of poems in which the poet tackles tough traumas with candor while rooted in current events at the time of each poem. Gary is masterful at poetic form from sonnet to villanelle, leading the reader through each layer of her story. In many ways, this reads more like a memoir than poetry, but poetry sings in every page.
Gary’s collection is deeply personal, tackling an eating disorder and more. Her story is essential. It leads us into the trauma, through it, and on the other side where she’s found hope. Her poem in which she and Princess Diana are compatriots in a silent battle: “Princess Di, you’ll lend this thing your name,/crowning a hushed disease with regal grace.”/” (pg. 52)
I love that she included photos of herself and that the broken angel on the cover was hers and plays a pivotal role in these poems. Gary slips through time like an observer of her own life, reaching back into her emotions but also into observations that are only recalled with distance.
Her journey is an artistic one, though a love of music is strung through each poem, from “Discovering Classical Music” and “Under the Piano” to “Fifteen Minutes at Julliard” and “Skating Lesson.” But her love of painting and art also tie these poems tightly together from early memories of learning art with her mother to her poem “Portrait at Dusk,” which is not overtly about art but paints a picture for the reader.
“Skating Lesson” is among the most beautiful poems in this collection with its surreal and dreamlike state. It’s as if Gary’s narrator has lost herself in the spins and curves of the lines left on the ice. Time and Other Solvents: A Story of Healing by Claudia Gary is a gorgeous collection. Don’t miss out.
RATING: Cinquain
About the Poet:
A three-time finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, 2013 semifinalist for the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize nominee and former poetry editor, Claudia Gary writes, edits, and gives writing workshops through The Writer’s Center (writer.org). Her workshops are currently accessible worldwide via Zoom, and include one-day “crash courses” on the Villanelle, the Sonnet, and Natural Meter, as well as slightly longer courses on the science of poetry and how poetry has been used to navigate and heal trauma.
