Connecting the Dots: New and Selected Poems

Helen Kanevsky dismantles the separation between fact and fiction in her new poetry collection that enlightens with imagery but also delves into literal truth. Life, the endless reverse from which Helen Kanevsky draws her bitter-sweet poetic brew, is just too weird to grasp and maybe not worth grasping (“Life violates every code of decency”). It is “Rabbis in kimonos munching on gefilte fish sushi.” It is an entity that, when you think you’ve found the particles from which it is constructed, turned into a wave and scatters – its meaning ever elusive, and fading into old recollections. And yet, there is that reality that must be connected with sobriety. As the poet says, “Memories are useless ballast … until you are brought in for questioning.” Reality in Helen’s poems defies exactitude, best captured not by exciting exposition, but in the Kanevsky-esque disquisition. And, it is FUN! Bruce Neuburger, writer, educator, and peace activist