Book Review: Roundabout by Marie Ego (2016)
Posted on February 1, 2017, by Loretto Community
By Mary Anne Reese
“You who loved humanity would have laughed today at your funeral and been surprised to see who gathered there when before it was too much to lift a finger for you.”
So begins the poem “Akos,” one of the first poems in Marie Ego’s new full-length collection Roundabout. The poet addresses this brief communal confession to an AIDS-afflicted prostitute and continues:
“[Y]ou accepted pitiful offerings as though they were regal gifts and loved the giver with forgiving eyes…”
Marie Ego wrote most of these poems while serving in Ghana from 1987 to 2010. Her title comes from the many traffic circles called roundabouts she saw there. “At a roundabout, one changes direction; the ultimate roundabout is about death.” She writes in one poem of how time itself goes “Round and Round,” when “loss/ and endings/ precede/ beginnings.”
Reading Roundabout brings us into new country through all five senses. Many poems take us right into the climate: “Africa Hot,” where the reader feels her own “dusty tongue” amid the bush fires; “Deep in the Forest,” where we are surrounded by butterflies and giant palm branches; “spellbound in the beauty” of raindrops gathering momentum; washed in the mist of the Kintampo Water Fall.
Most importantly, we meet specific Ghanaian people who leave lasting imprints through Marie’s words.
In one poem, the narrator holds Thomas Adako’s hand while he is dying. We live the Easter of Ama Maggie, a young epileptic woman, whose celebratory meal is a delivery of sardines and rice.
A local woman making “a beautiful pot” is one the locals call “basa-basa” (crazy) — but she keeps on creating undeterred. Although medical progress in the West has greatly diminished the epidemic, we meet some of the many in Africa who continue to suffer from AIDS.
Marie is an honest and awed observer. She freely shares not only what the poet and artist sees and hears, but also the inner responses.
“I wait/as patiently/as I can,” she writes in “Advent Compost,” for the changes wrought by “those hard words/said to me/or worse/yet, said by me …”
Marie’s poetic roundabouts are not all set in Ghana. Some come from times before and after her overseas service. Roundabout is a poignant, searching and joyful pilgrimage of the heart.
Roundabout is available from Marie Ego at the Loretto Motherhouse, 515 Nerinx Road, Nerinx, KY 40049-9999. Donations gratefully accepted.
Posted in
Topics:
