March is mean

“March is mean,” says Pamela Gerrand in the opening line of her poem, IN THE MEANTIME.

I couldn’t agree with her more.

Pamela Gerrand is a singer and songwriter with several albums (all of which I own) and the author of Wild Echo — her first book of poems.

I’ve known Pam for almost two decades. Her daughter used to babysit my son. My late wife and Pam used to do sound healing sessions together. So when she released Wild Echo last year, I purchased a copy right away.

But there’s always a great fear I have about buying a friend’s book of poems: What if they are really bad? Or even just moderately bad? Then I’d have to avoid the person for the rest of my days so as not to break it to them that their iambic meanderings were about as dry as a toaster manual... or that their mushy metaphors sounded like ChatGPT was asked to write a poem from the point of view of a daffodil dying from COVID.

Fortunately, Pam’s poems are some of the most enjoyable and refined I’ve ever read. They are deep yet easy to comprehend. The only reason I’ve moved through her book so slowly is that I tend to spend days rereading each poem before going on to the next. They are like really good soups — you don’t mind having the same one over and over again.

Here’s a sample for the first day of March…

IN THE MEANTIME

March is mean.
 

Not really winter, not quite spring.

Mid-March brings intoxicating sunshine.

Pale faces tilt toward its blissful beams.

Honey warm, sun touches skin, tendrils of hope unfurl.

The next day, the grey is back with a vengeance. It carries

a sharp wind that begs an extra buttoning, another layer

of fortitude. In the meantime, a warmer breeze

begins to blow. Make up your mind. I say to March.

Layer upon layer, like a set of Russian dolls, you strip off jacket,

then sweater, then gloves. Like the tiny doll at the centre you feel

small and exposed. The warmth soothes. Birdsong is an ecstasy

that hums you along the pavement, feet singing.

Cycles, seasons, rhythms, reasons.

March is the space in between.

We Northerners know this month as the ‘meantime.’ A kind of

hang in there, hope springs eternal. It’s just around the corner,

a kind of breaking point.

——

That’s just an appetizer — only half the poem among many others in her 100-page collection.

At $30 Wild Echo may seem wildly expensive (even in Canadian dollars) — but you’re not buying just a book but a piece of art that you’ll enjoy over and over again. Wild Echo is not available in bookstores or on Amazon, only through her website. I highly recommend you head over there now, order a copy and find out why Don Miguel Ruiz (author of The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom) calls Pamela Gerrand “a poet cantadora breathing soul into the world through the gifts of her voice and her poetry.”

Here’s the link: https://pamelajanegerrand.com/product/wild-echo-poetry-book/ 

—John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscirber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/