Lulu Marketplace

Buy from Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Sculpting-Hearts-Poetry-Conversing-Masters/dp/0557223717/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283874045&sr=1-2
Poetry
Sculpting the Heart's Poetry While Conversing with the Masters

By: Joyce White
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN: 978-0-557-22371-8
Reviewed by: Eloise Michael
Review Date: July 2010


The fourth book in Joyce White's Sculpting the Heart series, Sculpting the Heart's Poetry While Conversing with the Masters is a collection of poems that are playful, hopeful, and sometimes even joyful. White does not shy away from serious topics, however. She is able to write about loss, regret, and her own deep fears. White hints at times of... More > depression and hopelessness in her own life. Her readers will do more than share her sorrow, however, and will not be encouraged to wallow in their own. In her poem Tears are like Polliwogs White describes her own optimism in the playful style which runs throughout her poetry.

Tears are like Polliwogs

It is nice to think of tears like
polliwogs swimming around in a
mortal's eyes, evolving into well-
adjusted higher forms,

with better motor control and hand-
eye co-ordination, ascending rather
than descending,

bending rather than breaking,
reaffirming rather than hurting, and
smiling rather than frowning,

It's nice to think of sorrow as water,
and all those tears escaping where
swelling pain had been,

It's nice to think our sorrow will soon
evaporate just like our tears, turning
our attention to helping others evolve.

The philosophy outlined in this poem provides the template for much of White's work. When she writes of challenges or loss, she includes in each poem a seed of hope that will leave readers feeling lighter even as they are reminded of their own times of sadness. Her hopefulness does not trivialize the subjects of the poems, however. White's optimism is subtle, sometimes no more than her tone or the way she chooses her words. The effect is cumulative, and after reading the entire collection, readers will be left satisfied, energized, and smiling.

Most of the poems in this collection are ekphrastic poems, each written in response to a piece of art, in this case, paintings. White describes ekphrastic poetry as a "conversation between two pieces of art." In these poems, White looks into the soul of the artist to whom she is responding, imagining his thoughts and motivation, turning each painting into a metaphor for the artist's life. Readers will view Picasso's work in a new way, and may even be inspired to visit the nearest museum or gallery.

White has a talent for transforming hardship and grief into something more. She turns these challenges into a way forward, both for herself, and for her readers. She is at her best, however, when she is writing of joy. Her observations of children, animals, and nature capture her subjects' ability to fully live in the moment and to celebrate that moment. Happy Children, below, is a perfect illustration.

Happy Children

Happy children are all-stars, curious
jugs of sunshine, their faces radiant,

their eyes metaphors of emptiness and
fullness perfectly contained, their
naiveté keeps us entertained,

they don't think about anything too
long, peanut butter keeps them
energized, they have happy feet, elastic
faces,

like acrobats they ride bareback on
wild stallions with wings, they train
smarter, not harder, slow and steady
gets them there,

they balance fun with rest, and they lie
on their backs and take pleasure in
moments of nothingness.

Joyce White's tone is honest, friendly, never preachy. Many of the poems in this collection are written in the first person, but White's voice is present, even when she does not specifically include herself. Readers will feel as though she is confiding in them. White chooses her words carefully, having fun with their sounds and meanings. She also employs metaphors, never saying more than necessary to make her point or to create an image. It is easy to read White's poems and easy to find meaning within them. When readers go back to reread a few favorites, they will find that the poems are even better the second and third time.

Quill says: Playful poems that will leave readers hopeful even when their subjects are sad or difficult.
***********************************************************
NEW REVIEW
From: Fran Lewis
riffyone@optonline.net To: jwhiteangelwings
Date: Wed, Aug 4, 2010 10:57 am

Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry

While Conversing with the Masters
Reviewed by Fran Lewis
Ekphrasis Poetry by author Joyce White

Ekphrasis poetry is said to be a conversation between two pieces of art. The poet or writer interprets the piece of art and creates a narrative verse that depicts or represents his/her reaction to that painting, picture or piece of art. This form of poetry dates back to ancient Greece. This type of poetry is used to describe something. The term Ekphrasis has often been referred to when describing works of visual art in a poem, not with a description in general, or with description of other kids of art. The poet responds to the direct stimuli of a piece of art together with his/her own experience in the moment. This type of poem can be a description of the artwork, a story that comes to the mind of the poet while viewing this piece of art, or a poem describing the scene or experience in which the piece of art is placed.

Author Joyce White in her book Sculpting the Heart’s of Poetry creates stories within her poems, elicits feelings and emotions in the reader as you take this journey along with her and learn about life, people, the masters, painters, real life experiences and much more.

Each poem has its own voice and its’ own special message conveyed by the author. As she relates how she feels about her mom who has passed on and her feelings of anger and frustration I can see the tears being shed and hear the screams that follow when she is angry. In the first poem she sets the tone for the many faces of every woman, her good, bad, recalcitrant, obstructive and unhappy. The moods she depicts in the first part of her anthology of poems helps the reader better understand the many phases that woman go through. I became enthralled with the picture of the hands. In my mind is depicted the generations of life from start to almost finish. As you look at the smoothness of the child’s hand and then move on in progression to that of the others as they age, you feel time slipping by and the many generations of a family depicted in each hand.

Next, the author introduces a second chapter as she speaks to the Masters of Painting and Art. As an artist shapes, creates, forms with precision a piece of sculpture so does the poet create and sculpt these vividly depicted and storytelling poems. From Picasso’s Cubism art with paintings that tell a story of their own with women that intrigued him, our poet paints a true picture of the greatness of this painter.

Van Gogh’s Starry Night is my favorite painting and I have a copy of it hanging in my living room. The picture depicts a small village on a cool night. You can feel the breeze, the chill in the air and smell the freshness that the painter creates in this beautiful painting. The swirls in the sky and the eerie feeling evoked cause the painter and the poet to express a feeling of despair, uncertainty and misunderstanding.

Emotions come through in the next chapter titled Comedy /Tragedy as the author compares tears to that of polliwogs swimming and looking through the eyes of a person functioning more efficiently. It would be great if we could wash away our tears and our sorrows and think of positive ways to make others happy. The other poem that I loved was Springtime Choices. You can smell the freshness in the air and the joy that embodies each of us when the leaves turn green and the world is so beautiful when Spring returns. The author goes on to write about Insects Compared to Man and she vividly describes the inner most thoughts of an insect, its physical appearance and how we are alike in many aspects making the reader wonder about why we are so concerned with light and even death. We need to enjoy nature’s beauty and embrace life more.

There are so many outstanding poems in this part of the book that you will have to read and enjoy each one and decide for yourself, which are your favorite. Mine is White on White. The world would be dull and bland if everything and everyone White or Black. The different colors of nature, the trees in fall, the painter’s pallet or even a box of crayons provides the variety that we need to make things our own and the world so beautiful. Imagine if all dogs were black and all birds were white. We could not tell them apart except by breed, we would all be the same and the differences we need to embrace in each other and the world would be gone.

Finally the author comes full circle in the last section titled The Circle of Life. Describing the despair of an Alcoholic and his dismal view of life, Hermit’s Poets and the dilemma of camouflaging himself from the world not to be noticed and his vague and depression outlook on life followed by Ribbons, Bows and Pink Lace which is really quite unique and varied in its subject. The author writes in the first person the evolving of a young girls and the changes that happen within her and the things that make her happy growing up and the same things that she loves as she ages. The poem Growing Love brought tears to my eyes since I just lost my sister, my best friend. As the author tells of her feeling toward her mom and how she feels about her loss and finally joining her, you can feel the love that will never be gone. The final poem you will have to read for yourself where it all comes to together and her true feelings about her mother and her life come together.

Author Joyce White sculpted, created and shares her Ekphrasis poems with the reader helping us enter a literary world that is unknown to many. These poems are interesting, each one tells a story of its own and the pictures speak to the reader/viewer and you can feel the emotions emitted in them as you read each poem and look at each picture and understand their true meaning.

Happiness, joy, sadness, sorrow, life’s mysteries and discoveries are just some of the emotions and events shared in this outstanding book. This is a book that everyone will enjoy reading. Every reader will get something different out of it creating his or her own perspective and viewpoint. For those teaching college classes this book would be a great resource. For those who want to write poetry that tells a story and interacts with the reader this is a great resource to help you understand the form of poetry and how to use pictures, stories and events to write them.

I really enjoyed reading this heartwarming, well written and vividly depicted events which allowed the reader to form her own mental images of what the poems are saying and how to visualize them in her mind.

Fran Lewis: Reviewer
www.gabina49.webs.com
www.gabina49@wordpress.com
Read my reviews on Ijustfinished.com
Read my reviews on face book on reviewers roundup. < Less

Joyce White’s Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry While Conversing With the Masters offers first some thoughts regarding Feminist Mythology.

Setting the tone is the first poem entitled Women in which all nuances of women are introduced from the kisses and tears, to rivalry, Caffeine, Nicotine and Prozac to an understanding that women have too many dimensions to simply set down on paper.

Poet White explains in Bird of God how she goes about constructing her rhythmical pieces.

Interspersed among the poetic odes in the work Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry is found artwork including pen and ink drawings, photography and artwork created by the Masters. I found one photograph in particular to be... More > particularly compelling, entitled A Family’s Hands we see a grouping of hands including one of a baby and continuing on to the veined and conceivably arthritic hand of perhaps the oldest member of the family.

What daughter, I ponder might not find something with which to agree or to enjoy while reading the words of the four stanzas entitled Turning Into Mom.

Birthdays, Happy Children, and Becoming a Poem are some of the gentle, well crafted odes comprising Chapter 1 Feminist Mythology.

In the second Chapter of the book is found a collection of writer White’s conversations with the Masters. From Zeus, Hermes, Dionysus and the First New Year Baby to Saint Raphael, and Madonna and Jesus and angels; poet White talks of love and flowers, and feeling loved, the thousand artists eyes. She tells of Artists who write and paint and create.

White tells of Raphael who comes to heal, and of angels who bless with celestial knowledge and of Jesus and the melodic music of Mozart and how angels fly and, Hermes. Hermes, the keeper of the in between, is chosen to report, record, and transport the dead.

Picasso is discussed in Chapter 3. That Poet White harbors a good bit of interest, caring and perhaps love for this artiste is very evident as the reader undertakes the works included in this series.

Picasso was born in Spain, moved to France and enjoyed a reputation as a renowned theater designer, draftsman, and sculptor, and, he was likely the greatest printmaker of his era and beyond.

White tells how Picasso’s paintings fill her head, she relates that the artist’s favorite model was Olga, and tells us something of that woman from her 22 inch waist to her dancing to unheard melodies, and while she looks a little odd in her cubic form, HE, no doubt, thought her perfectly constructed.

And one of my favorite paint artists, Van Gogh, is addressed in Chapter 4 which is introduced with a Chagall collage presented in muted magenta and lavender and is created by versifier White herself.

‘There is beauty and bravery and achievement in Van Gogh’s Starry Night.’ I must agree.

Aphrodite and Venus and Marilyn Monroe, and Botticelli all become part of what we females are, we are women.

Chapter 5 leads the reader to Drama, Drama, Drama and tears like polliwogs, I think that is one of my favorite lines in the this section, and maybe even the work as a whole. Tears like polliwogs, what visual portrayals fill the senses. That, and poet White’s assertion that if it looks and sounds like a poem, it is cause a smile. There is hope for all of us then, isn’t there?

Money, Grammar and Endless love and barking Yorkies and graying hair and lips that taste of chocolate, White weaves visions with words.

Only a bard would recognize so easily that moths live, work and die much as do humans. She watches a spider spinning a web, and plays what if with white on white.

White pigeons hide from white cats and white birds search for white worms, and, she asks the question could we learn if white chalk wrote on a white chalkboard. We CAN live without a good many things we think we just have to have, but, can we actually live without red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black and brown?

I have cats, I particularly enjoyed the Ballet of Cats, ‘by day they sit and stare in unison. They achieve lift off, twitch tails, and maybe even hiss ad stew. They are, cats by day and tigers by night.’

And Chapter 6 is filled with The Circle of Life. Works include evocative narrative of An Alcoholic, the delicate lilt Blossoms Praying, and mischevious First Dirty Word summing up a youngster’s growing up, a Cowboy’s Moonlight Ride, Hermit Poets and Ribbons, Bows and Lace present a slice of life across generations, times, places and gender.

Who should live and Who should die is a thought provoking discussion especially for those of us who have had, or may have soldier fathers, brothers, husbands, or today moms and sisters.

Growing Love, and The glass Dancer complete the work.

Rhymster White has crafted an eclectic, balanced work trailing across a myriad of themes. The work is wordsmith in content, wordsmith in beauty. That White has come through sorrow, enjoyed beauty and finds worthwhile in much is evidenced in her odes, stanzas and poems.

Lyricist Joyce White has strengthened herself using spiritual standards directing the core values set down in use of art therapy for sculpting the heart and thus the emotional wellbeing of the self. White employs these values creatively as a way to promote healing and growth and self awareness.

Renewal of verve, optimism, self discovery, moving on following tragedy or even a happy life changing event are all recurrent themes running through her work. White’s Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry thrusts wellness and good heartedness to the forefront. Sharing pain, hurt and happiness is therapeutic, liberating and cathartic White fosters integrity and wellbeing through the curative acts of creativity.

God focused dreams, work and doing embracing a belief of duality, harmonizing radiance and dark through verse and conversing with our spiritual leader fills our essence with the healing, joy and motivation to move forward with renewed vigor and self awareness in the face of the upsets we all face in life.

Filled with a poignant, ethereal quality the written works offered by White are counter balanced nicely with various depictions of art work including sculpture, pictures of various medium and photographs, all in all she has taken an eclectic set of materials and woven them into an affirmation of women in whole and the individual woman who may be reading.

Happy to recommend Joyce White’s Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry while conversing with the Masters.

For review I received an ARC from the author.

===========================
Reviewed by Molly’s Reviews
molly martin
===========================
Product Details and Shipping Information from Amazon

TITLE Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry while conversing with the Masters.
AUTHOR Joyce White
GENRE Poetry

PAPER BACK 111 pages
ISBN 978-0-557-22371-8
PUBLISHER LULU 3131 RDU Center Dr STE 210, Morrisville, NC, 27560 < Less