Traversing Regression
A Collection of Poetry
by
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Blue Heavens Grip the folding ends of blue heavens with subtle fingers imaginings of beyondness tremble out into it with two quick hands sealing thoughts together and mend the breaking sky with tender silver and steadiness and of a mother’s love of her babes the sore upon the blue is kissed a mellow winded blow of soft flesh from the lips caress the seam she made as minutes fold away into nothingness and blister that hairline wish washed as memory Elevated i’m elevated to the highest natural high on clouds soft and airy like finding pure cotton on my skin, the contact is so simple, but ever so delicate to me, the very sight of your presence thrills me afire as my mind spins in reckless oscillation to and fro up to a heaven in my mind’s eye. and what am i to do? is this a temporary movement into harmony? will the loveliness i feel come back to me from you? this is no common theme, no trite expedition into admiration, no light matter where you be in my heart is mysterious, overwhelming and when my eyes drink up your delicious presence like honeyed milk my head spins and you me make weak i ail to tell, to touch you and tell you all of this, but cannot, the water in my well is at the brim and near may be the moment that I fall hard with all the weight of the world, my world in which the air i breath lacks the element of you in it to be complete i hold wild idealized thoughts that grow stronger with each time we meet, with time will they fade as these questions find their way into my vulnerability?
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About the Book
Elizabeth Donahey’s Traversing Regression is a collection of poems written during the 1990s. Th e anthology is absolutely fascinating. The poems are generally brief, free-form and thematic. The language and the imagery are beautiful, powerful, and impressionistic such as the poem Provence, France. Nature inspires much of the imagery, from rose blossoms to blue heavens, moonlight, trembling trees… Donahey writes in the Romantic tradition of Wordsworth and Byron (to whom the longest poem in the book, Breath for Byron, is an ode), but I can’t help being reminded of the Poetes Maudits as well as Beaudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. The love motif is present in a majority of the pieces, abstractly in "Peasant Girl," and "Disturb the Universe," and more specifically, in the later poems, where she expresses love or admiration for a specifi c individual. There is also a great deal of pain and sorrow. Dark themes - death, abandonment - abound ("Can I Walk," "Drifting Ugly through Algebraic Language," "Blue Finger Baby Frozen Ashes," Winter Whines," and they are sometimes self-referential "Against my Constant Mirror’s Refl ection." Consequently, the poetry’s most exciting feature is the juxtaposition of contrasts, for example love and death in Kissing Death on the Lips. We even find sophisticated sociological themes such as race relations, as in "You Are Your Own Victims" and "The Black One." The collection is more or less chronological, and it seems to refl ect Elizabeth’s spiritual growth. The later poems seem “sunnier,” expressing more “uncomplicated” love, as in "Elevated" and "Love song." This series of poems exudes authenticity and existential truth. It is the revelation of a person’s inner quest. It is gripping and strongly evocative. It is a glimpse into Elizabeth’s soul. Reading her poems, we learn to know her, and to love her. — Dr. Tom Kando, PhD, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus
About the Author
Elizabeth Kate Donahey is a Northern California poet. Elizabeth began writing poetry at the young age of fifteen on the topics of society, personal growth, love, and family with an undeniable influence from the great poets of the Romantic period, such as Byron, Wordsworth and Keats. Elizabeth is the eighth adopted child of a highly diverse family. Much of her poetry provided healing and perspective, having been a survivor of separation from her birth parents and twin sister. Her passion about sharing her personal journey with others is clear throughout her work. When Elizabeth began her journey as a young writer at the unusually young age of nine, her third grade teacher accused her of plagiarism, and called her mother to discuss the matter in the classroom. To her teacher's surprise, Elizabeth had written an outstanding story that was not typical of third grader. Later on in her education, Elizabeth’s English teacher, Mr. Gordon Langford, at Healdsburg High School in California, also recognized her gift for writing and knew that it far exceeded her age, and often commented that she possessed an old soul, centuries older than her time. In review of her book, he wrote, “Some Voyages are meant to cross oceans, while others explore the contents of the soul. Traversing Regression led me into fantastic elements of truth and consciousness just beyond the eyes.” Elizabeth has her Bachelor's and Master's of Arts degrees in Sociology, with a French minior. She lives with her husband and two children in the San Francisco Bay Area.