Judith Terzi
Judith Terzi, a friend of the Second Sunday Poetry Series since the beginning, passed away earlier this year, and so I decided to set aside this Sunday to celebrate and remember both Judith and her work.
Here is the review I wrote on Amazon for her last chapbook, Now, Somehow, from Finishing Line Press:
A chapbook that weaves together chemo and Covid, lockdown and hair loss. Judith Terzi is skilled at avoiding abstractions and giving us concrete particulars without self-pity and with much gentle humor. "Inside the market no smile / will be known. Eyes. You have to watch the eyes. Some cold-shoulder. Some meet you head on, / invite. A wink. A crinkle. A glow. Ojo to Ojo." Thus the supermarket. And then on the opposite page a poem about chemo: "In the lab, cool nurses watch over you for 2 hours or 3. / Apple juice, jello, fruit cocktail, Lorna Doones. / When you're chained to the pack, it's a bitch to sleep." (This last line I thought would make a fine title to the book, but "Now, Somehow" might be better at capturing the mood of the times and the poet's personal situation.) In one of the last poems, I love the wistful honesty of "I wish I could say / someone noticed my lip gloss or how long / my hair had grown since chemo ended last / year, my stark white hair piles on top of my / head, hair grown in thicker than before. // Or that my kitchen sparkled like the one / in MSNBC interviews. White, luminous / kitchen with a bowl of fruit arranged / on the counter--oranges and apples / replaced by apricots and nectarines as / the months have rolled by." Always a light touch, always ingeniously, unpretentiously hopping from thought to thought, from poem to poem, from a cockatiel's antics to society's woes.
Judith Terzi, a friend of the Second Sunday Poetry Series since the beginning, passed away earlier this year, and so I decided to set aside this Sunday to celebrate and remember both Judith and her work.
Here is the review I wrote on Amazon for her last chapbook, Now, Somehow, from Finishing Line Press:
A chapbook that weaves together chemo and Covid, lockdown and hair loss. Judith Terzi is skilled at avoiding abstractions and giving us concrete particulars without self-pity and with much gentle humor. "Inside the market no smile / will be known. Eyes. You have to watch the eyes. Some cold-shoulder. Some meet you head on, / invite. A wink. A crinkle. A glow. Ojo to Ojo." Thus the supermarket. And then on the opposite page a poem about chemo: "In the lab, cool nurses watch over you for 2 hours or 3. / Apple juice, jello, fruit cocktail, Lorna Doones. / When you're chained to the pack, it's a bitch to sleep." (This last line I thought would make a fine title to the book, but "Now, Somehow" might be better at capturing the mood of the times and the poet's personal situation.) In one of the last poems, I love the wistful honesty of "I wish I could say / someone noticed my lip gloss or how long / my hair had grown since chemo ended last / year, my stark white hair piles on top of my / head, hair grown in thicker than before. // Or that my kitchen sparkled like the one / in MSNBC interviews. White, luminous / kitchen with a bowl of fruit arranged / on the counter--oranges and apples / replaced by apricots and nectarines as / the months have rolled by." Always a light touch, always ingeniously, unpretentiously hopping from thought to thought, from poem to poem, from a cockatiel's antics to society's woes.
© 2024 Judith Terzi
Judith Terzi was a Featured Poet at the June 2024 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Judith Terzi was a Featured Poet at the June 2024 Second Sunday Poetry Series