The Last Skin by Barbara Ras (May 2019)
My most recent foray into poetry led me to this short collection. I didn’t pull much in the usual style of TOA (though I did note that ‘stupidity is the gravest authority’, which I like) but I do have some notes on certain poems that I’ll share below.
‘Now All The Fears’
I liked this one for its good rhythm from couplet to couplet.
‘Blue Door’
Reading this poem brought to mind the word ‘saudade’, a nostalgia for what never was that I highlighted way back in the earliest days of this TOA project.
‘Dear C’
I liked the last stanza.
‘Once The Ocean Takes You’
My favorite poem in the book (but not one for which I have any particular explanation).
‘Washing The Elephant’
I believe this is the most well known poem from this collection. I thought it contained a good lesson – it can take a long time to figure out what matters if we wait for everything else to fall away.
