By Mike Heenan, Literary Editor
Red Laquered Chopsticks by Betty Warrington-Kearsley is an astonishing and powerful volume of poetry.
Reflecting a deep knowledge of both her Asian and Western heritage, Kearsley manages to bridge cultures with perfectly-crafted images frozen in moments of time, not unlike the Inukshuks she describes as “saviours of rock and stone/ who appear suddenly in the wilderness,/ pointing the way home for those lost/ …. Or warn where not to go./ Witnesses in stone from long ago.
CBC’s David Halton says, “These are poems of sensuous words and sharp images that beg to be read and re-read.”
“Mid Fall --/ Ths morning the river is steaming/ as sluggish dawn shrugs off/ her eiderdown sky.”
Unforgetable images inhabit her poetry from both Sino and Anglo-Saxon heritages as she weaves a magic cloak of powerfully ancient and crisply modern references.
Kearsley’s poetry is at once understandable and erudite.
Betty Warrington-Kearsley, Red Laquered Chopsticks (Toronto: TSAR Publications), ISBN 1-894770-33-1. www.tsarbooks.com
Mike Heenan BA, BJ, MA
Wordsmith~On~Call
1-613-230-4640
mikeheenan@rogers.com
www.oiw.ca