The author poignantly claims in one of these collected poems that
she "looked straight into darkness to see a starry night." Indeed,
Lorette C. Luzajic has had some highs and lows and she bares them
openly in The Astronaut's Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos. Without
lowering her gaze, she lets you look straight inside of her and you
may flinch before she does.
The Astronaut's Wife- a poetry book with one of the most amazing
cover designs by painter Iaian Greenson- takes its title from a
mediocre movie of the same title, but of appropriate melodrama and
a good cast. Luzajic borrows to suit her whims frequently, not
because she isn't wholly original- she surely is- but because
written, visual, musical and cinematic culture are mainstays of her
palette in both her mixed media paintings and in her writing. Guest
appearances from all walks of high and low culture may or may not
be recognized by her readers, but add layers of depth at every
turn. In this case, the title is a perfect fit in keeping with the
poet's grim and steady gaze into the dark skies in search of that
Van Gogh-ian glory. Much of her work resonates with this balancing
of dark and light, and here the intensity of irony and sorrow
shines forth straight from the title. For the book is dedicated to
her late husband, who lived the philosophy of psychonautism and
then died from it. For the exploration of unknown frontiers can and
does lead to death, but still the poet seeks in this collection to
know them.
And if the borrowed cover title sums it all fittingly in the poet's
personal folklore, the last poem The Astronaut wraps it all up with
a bit of an homage to Dylan Thomas. How dare you go so gently into
that good night, she says last of all.
The journey through love and death is harrowing but an amazing
resilience shines through creatively as the poet takes you into her
psyche. She reveals the kind of betrayals in love that many of us
have endured, prying apart their layers with intuition and wisdom.
In Prison Blues, she laments the fall-out of a beautiful
relationship ruined by control issues. "And yes it's easy on a
Sunday to miss you," she admits, "the lonely chill of frosty
daylight feels sentimental, and does not recall how we wrung each
other into total emptiness." She expresses her fears, wondering if
anyone will ever "reach for me the way you reach for me." Without
holding onto anger, she acknowledges the possibility that no one's
"intention is to hurt another- love simply longs to possess
another, to keep them with a jailer's hands."
Other works show a more cynical and bitter edge toward love and its
"quiet scars and gaping maw" (Valium for Breakfast) but the poet
still retains in these furious expressions a sardonic sense of
humour. "Since you asked," she writes, "I'll tell you what has
become of me…I'm fat, and work as a cashier, just as Satan promised
me on Highway 61." (That's a somewhat obscure reference, by the
way, to the great Canadian film Highway 61- there is a scene where
Satan tells a poor little girl with big dreams that she isn't going
to be famous, she's going to be fat and work as a cashier.) But
just when it appears that Luzajic might be feeling sorry for
herself, (forgivable, I think, for in matters of love we all have
those moments) suddenly, she is tough and beautiful and reflective:
in Damage she tells us she can't be sure "he is prepared for the
life of a poet, for the rain soaked rooms her soul hides." And in
Untitled for A. she says confidently that she has been many things,
from starlet to ghost to artist to lover and that she "was never
all those pieces you could not pick off the ground."
Eros is perhaps a loose interpretation because while many of the
poems are erotic or about romantic partners, some of the most
powerful are about family, and in fact Luzajic has dedicated the
book to her husband, father and brother, the men who have, she
says, made her who she is. The most stunning pieces in Love are
those that open and close that section. In my brother shows me
easter, she turns looking at the moon through her brother's
telescope into a visionary experience we can all share. And the
piece that closes the first part of the book is a ten-part poem
about family experience, bridging the themes nicely with a last
line that refers to love and life as a complicated thing that can
easily be simplified- in the end, it is only ashes after all.
It would be unfair to give too much away from the Death section of
Luzajic's poetry. For here, the artist's soul is tortured by loss,
and it is expressed so beautifully that the reader can't help but
cry. The poetry seems to contemplate the dead in all ways with
unbelievable eloquence. There's murder and mayhem and
methamphetamine, suicide and AIDS and cancer. Yet something of that
starry night shines in each poem, words that comfort and heal even
as they mourn. The poems are very personal and yet one gets the
feeling that they are written on behalf of everyone, f