Book Title:  The Bride Anthology

Author:  Patria Rivera

Publishing Company: Frontenac House (www.frontenachouse.com)

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 93

ISBN #:  978-1-897181-09-6

$15.95 

3 stars  

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner 

Toronto poet and editor, Patria Rivera, has a second book in publication, The Bride Anthology.  Her first, Puti/White, was shortlisted for the 2006 Trillium Book Award for Poetry.  In 1997, she received an honourable mention in the ARC National Poetry Magazine Poem of the Year Contest.

Rivera introduces this new anthology with the words:  “The ways of love are long and tortuous.  They include the ability to start over after things have blown up as well as the fine art of remembering the good times and forgetting the bad.  Sometimes we need an old, never-married aunt to bring us back to an understanding of where true love resides. . . . Catch this poet as she runs after the fickleness of love and longing.” 

The book is divided into three parts.  Part 1 addresses the wedding and the times and emotions leading up to it.  “The way the dress falls” contains some lovely thoughts on the selection of a wedding gown:  “Create a stir, that's what she wanted” and leads to the observation “No bridal gown is perfect.”  “Pink gloss” explores the world of make-up and the realistic notion “the cornerstone of no make-up is skin that looks perfect,” understanding “Not everyone can wear nude” and describing the available artist's palette of options.  “Why the bride didn't want a train on her wedding gown” takes the reader from the romantic proposal to the she-devil bride-to-be who “will command her maid of honour to wear flat shoes so she can stand taller on her wedding day.  Will not pay for the maid of honour's gown.  Expect her to throw a shower.  Later she will order her bridesmaids to wear turquoise dresses.”  Other poems in the section, the musings of family members and wedding guests are lost to the reader, a whirl of imagery, but, perhaps, thoughts too personal for us to comprehend, as though we were hearing bits of a conversation to which we were not a party. 

Part 2 traces through a time of pre-wedding dreams failing to become realities, of disappointments, failures, if onlys.  “Like a good itch” illustrates this phase well:  “Is it my fault that we thrive on being apposite?  That we grate against our crumbling brick walls as if they were parts of us we both love and hate--”.   

Part 3 tells of a new phase of growing understanding, reconciliation.  “How to handle, preserve, and store us” relates:  “we made many mistakes trying to step lively.”  “Rules of engagement” show a new path of a relationship, advising “Remember, relationships that have never been tested are like sliced potatoes that have been rinsed of their starch.  Ask Julia Child.  They won't hold a shape.”  The poem concludes with some of the best-ever relationship advice:  “we should never go to bed with a heartache.”             

When the poet's message comes through, this is a collection exploring the wide range of emotions and events between a proposal and a settled marriage.  In many of the poems, the reader can only wish the poet had been a bit more giving, not hiding the message in the imagery.