HCSHR 6:20 - Kelly Sargent, Bookmarks

Bookmarks by Kelly Sargent.  Winchester, VA, USA: Red Moon Press 2023.  978-1-958408-32-2. 66 pp., $20 US. redmoonpress.com.

Review by Dave Read

 

In her Introduction to her collection Bookmarks, Kelly Sargent describes the sign language she developed with her “profoundly deaf” twin sister.  Sargent, also born with significant hearing loss, articulates how “images and meanings merged to create a shared language” that even their parents did not understand.  This background has contributed to her experience as a poet, and the way she visualizes the world. In particular, the process of writing haiku and senryu for Sargent “feels like coming home”.  Indeed, a merger of image and meaning can be found in the short-form poems throughout Bookmarks, Sargent’s debut haiku collection. 

 

Sargent’s claim that “Bookmarks speaks to some of life’s defining moments” is proven true page after page.  Consider the following senryu:

 

second-hand shop

prom dress

brand new

 

That the subject of the poem is implicitly poor and unable to afford a new dress for prom, does not dim her excitement or diminish the fact that the dress is still “brand new” to her.

 

Likewise, Sargent is adept at articulating the various experiences of being a parent.  The following two haiku…

 

strawberry picking …

a dribble of sunshine

on my daughter’s chin

 

sycamore shade

my lap has room

for one more

 

…both effectively capture moments with a small child.  The first provides a humorous image of a toddler eating the strawberries she is meant to gather.  The second creates a warm picture of a child snuggling into her parent. However, Sargent is not naive in her depiction of parenthood.  A few pages later we find:

 

this year’s skinned knee

she runs …

to the coach

 

As children grow, they learn to take solace in people other than their parents.  Unlike “sycamore shade”, where Sargent’s daughter seeks comfort from her mother, here, the child, now a little older, goes to her coach with the injury that resulted from the game.

 

Bookmarks also addresses loss in various ways.  Divorce and the loss of loved ones feature in the following haiku:

 

dandelion

in the crack —

signing the divorce papers

 

wearing mom’s sweater

her arms

around me again

 

Similarly, Sargent is poignant in her collection’s title poem:

 

hospice book cart

bookmarks

between the pages

 

Bookmarks is a strong collection of haiku and senryu.  Sargent has written a book that effectively merges image with meaning in a manner like the sign language she and her sister developed as children.  I would recommend Bookmarks to all readers of haiku.

 *****

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