Latest
up from Spoken Label (Poetry / Spoken Word Podcast) features the
wonderful Natalie Easton author off “I’ll buy you a bird
instead”.
Natalie
Easton’s poems have appeared in such publications as Jet Fuel
Review, Superstition Review, and tinywords. She was nominated for a
Pushcart in 2014, and was a contributor at Bread Loaf in 2015. Her
debut chapbook, I’ll Buy You a Bird Instead, is was releeased on
Femme Salve Books on November 9th 2022.
“I’ll
buy you a bird instead” is described as “In this intimate
chapbook of poems, Natalie Easton examines the complexity of her
relationship with her mother through a kaleidoscope of loss, grief,
and love. The troubles of childhood are reexamined in adulthood,
brought out and looked at with a new depth of understanding. This is
a book that encourages the reader to look harder at the difficult
moments, and find the gems hidden there.”
Some
praise for “I’ll buy you a bird instead”:
“I’ll
Buy You a Bird Instead is a complex cry of longing – from a
‘throat veined white like a cut strawberry’ – for the
ever-disappearing mother. These poems are painted in the many colors
of illness, healing, resentment, surprising humor, regret: ‘Go in,
I will my former self. / Just for a glass of water.’ From caring
for the parent in extremis
(‘If you weren’t conscious in an hour, / then I should make a
call’) to tending her body after death (‘For all I knew you felt
it still’), from denial (‘I have tried to escape without /
burying you’) to acceptance (‘Now that I’m alone I know /
you’ll never stop returning to me’), Easton brings a
mother-daughter relationship – both foundational and impossible –
into razor-edge focus, side-by-side with its loss. Easton’s eye is
unflinching, her portrayal of grief unstinting. The red bird glowing
behind these poems – the parrot itself and the mother’s
devotion, even mixed with betrayal – is a reminder that love can
wreck us and still we can be ‘filled – like an urn – with its
beauty.’”
—Laura Cherry, author of Haunts (Cooper
Dillon Books)
“In forthright and gutting language, this
collection looks resolutely at the ways in which we communicate with
our past in mourning. This is a beautiful book that will break your
heart.”
—Erin Elizabeth Smith, author of DOWN
“…these
fierce and tender poems affirm that at the end of pain, what remains
is wisdom. What remains is love.”
—Angela Narciso Torres,
author of What Happens Is Neither.
**
https://spokenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/natalie-eaton-spoken-label-january-2023
https://anchor.fm/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Natalie-Eaton-Spoken-Label--January-2023-e1tp4v9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wetykMeBGJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wetykMeBGJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHXmhoOVAMg&t=3s (Poetry Segment)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wetykMeBGJU&t=179s (Interview)
https://radiopublic.com/spoken-label-6BalgM/s1!5d52f
https://anchor.fm/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Natalie-Eaton-Spoken-Label--January-2023-e1tp4v9
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/spoken-label/natalie-eaton-spoken-label-fm0OsP4Q21e/
https://www.bullhorn.fm/spokenlabel/posts/natalie-eaton-spoken-label-ja
https://www.podbean.com/ew/dir-iw5qq-167451a5
https://podbay.fm/p/spoken-label/e/1674777600
https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/Spoken-Label-p1317427/?topicId=248121080
