Jan Lee Ande
Reviews
Meredith Davies Hadaway
Drawing from a catalog of science, literature and the history of religious thought, Ande leaves no stone unturned in her exploration of the universe, examining in one slim volume of work, tarot, numerology, Gospel, the Bhagavad Gita, Norse mythology and sun worship alongside anatomy, philosophy, Rousseau, Rilke and Elizabeth Bishop. All things speak to her, saying "I am that, I too am that," and so to, she tells us, are we.
A poem about reading aloud serves as both ars poetica and religious instruction: "Read so that every sound reverberates in the ribs / like doves let loose from wooden cages / to soar into the azure sky. // Read as words ride the wind of volume / and pitch, each syllable strumming its own hollow / of the body, whirling and dipping. // Let images float deep in the pause between / thoughts, the great silence out of which we rise, / the voice where the divine waits."
Clearly it is what Ande describes as "the rabble rousing word" that is both our origin and our ongoing discovery. Her own work certainly fulfills that calling, for she evokes the divine in imagery and language that is clear as Holy water and as deep. The music of the spheres beckons, she tells us. And the true testament to her work is, we can hear it: "Consider this: a common gray stone sounding a note, / finding its pitch, willing the long silence to recede. // One person leaning in to listen, then two, flabbergasted, / thoughts skipping like stones on the sea."
from Poetry International Issue 9 2005.
© Jan Lee Ande 2007