The Wide Arable Land, review by Len Gasparini, The Vancouver Sun

     Caitlin Press of Vancouver has just released three new books of poetry—all modestly priced and with an attractive format.

     The title of Carolyn Zonailo book The Wide Arable Land is apt in view of the poetry she writes. The phrase is taken from John Keats, but the image is very much a part of Zonailo's poetic landscape: soft, loamy, and full of possibilities.

     Flower imagery abounds in her work, and there is something almost allegorical about the way she describes the experience of living, as if emotions and incidents were omens in themselves; and perhaps they are.

     Her vision is religious in a crudely pantheistic sense. Growth, fruition and decay are the only realities beyond our human system of arbitrary values. This is what Zonailo's intensely lyrical poetry is saying to us, and she brings it off beautifully.

     The Wide Arable Land is divided into six sections, and the sequence entitled “Journey to the Sibyl” is undoubtedly the most interesting and experimental. It reminds one of a Debussy prelude: "there's a moment of flowers/ the bird-woman building a nest/ called love.... she uses my bones to build her nest..."

     There are many notable poems in this collection, and only a few require further pruning. It's obvious that Zonailo has cultivated her land with imagination and grace.

Copyright by Len Gasparini: www.carolynzonailo.com, 2004.