Gloria J. Wimberley is surefooted in her wording and the reader is allowed to take pleasure in her writing without gagging on the sugar coating so often found in maternal expression.
By Alicia Winski
“Dialect of Dahlias,” by Gloria J. Wimberley, is an enticing and fascinating collection of poetry. A unique pairing of strength and delicacy, “Dahlias” is almost deceptive with its lacy title. When I first opened these pages and took a quick cursory glance, my attention was immediately drawn and riveted on the opening words of the pages before me. Generally, it takes me a few pages into a poetry collection to get this immersed. However, Wimberley’s writing is not the average poetry book by any means. Between these pages lie a treasure of writing and from the first lines on, she had my full attention. Gloria J. Wimberley is a woman who knows what she’s doing.
With a lush blue velvet running theme, Gloria opens her world to us, pulling us in slowly and immediately with an almost labyrinth effect. She starts this collection with “Escape from the Crow Cage”. Hypnotic bait is what she throws out to her reader with lines such as:
“Shyness is
a shell I live in
my voice locked
in a yolk of whys”
By the time readers gets to the final stanza:
“With wings spread
I am dancing
on a broken shell now, friend
–don’t
make
me
go
back”
they’re hooked; line and sinker.
In P(art) I, Lillies, of this collection, Wimberley presents a voice slightly reminiscent of Dorothy Allison with “Of Clouds & Clarity.” Upon first read, I could almost smell the pleasant scent of pine and ol’ tobacky in the air. Her visuals are right on the money without being bogged down in too much detail, a fault many writers of descriptive prose and poetry are weighted under. Make no mistake about it, Wimberley knows how to pull the reader into her world. And she does it extremely well.
On my journey through these pages, I fell in love with “Manatee and Monet,” now one of my favorite pieces. It’s a lovely story starting with:
“In the steaming jungles of Mexico
where ghosts of Mayans bend weeds with wind …”
This poem is a soft, gentle memory twining new love experiences with the comfort and contentment of time. An absolutely beautiful piece with rich, deep colored jewel lines such as:
“In the blue-black depths
of an underwater cave
revered by natives of Akumal
swims my frogman:
I know he will touch a pale anemone of petal pink
with delicacy and respect
‘Bonita’ he may think …”
and my favorite lines:
“… as Night ladles blackness over the villa, I wonder if
~my frogman my love~
sees me
after many years of marriage
not as a mermaid…but as a manatee
–After we’ve both discovered
with a mutual smile…
the comfortable truth in the play of light
…of a Monet landscape”
Another interesting aspect of Winberley’s writing is her incredible balance between the blue velvet and maternal themes that weave in and out of this glorious word quilt. Her absolute joy and wonder of her children are apparent and contained in some of the strongest threads of this collection. Lines such as,
“As she sat splayed on towels that lie across the kitchen tile
concentrating on her concoction,
art and alchemy
became birds of the same wing
My baby girl
–all smiles and purpose
showed me …
we can fill up our names
our identities
with meaning
no matter how fluid
or murky”
from “Pieces of a Liquid Puzzle” simply radiate warmth and tenderness without maudlin sentimentality. There are no precarious steps here. She is surefooted in her wording and the reader is allowed to take pleasure in her writing without gagging on the sugar coating so often found in maternal expression. I found myself completely enmeshed in her poem, “Sepia & Song” and unabashedly wallowing in the beauty of these lines:
“ Sepia seeping
into the Perfect Picture
but there’s no camera around
to capture
our gentle swaying
in the kitchen
or her baby head lying
warmly on my shoulder
or my arms enveloping her lovingly
as I mint
in my weary mind
this mother-daughter moment…”
In P(art) II, Lepers, Gloria takes on a far more dramatic, richer tone with pieces such as Kaiser Kiss, a piece that contains some of the best lines one could ever hope to read such as:
Out of the atomizer-fogged Ladies’ Room
she propels herself
like a newborn
Nazi
hair twined in ropes
brass nooses
In hose and heels
she is resurrected…”
If those lines don’t grab a reader’s attention, the reader must be comatose.
While the second part of this book is loaded with vivid, poetic imagery, the piece that touched me most is “A Woman’s Face,” probably one of the most introspective pieces in this collection. It’s a quiet and powerful poem, allowing the reader to peer into the mind and ritual of the early morning view we as women, tend to go through upon arising. I found it to be a lovely acceptance of aging beauty slowly but surely being etched with time and experience, into feminine flesh. Lines such as,
“Morning is unkind
to a woman’s face…
neither a splash
of lukewarm water
nor a dab of cool
cream can fill up the tiniest trenches
that He has dug
birthday-after-birthday”
drew me in with baited breath; releasing me with:
“…Eve-flesh is never
cleansed,
soothed,
or reborn
like a calla lily
doused
by the stamen of rain:
O Yes,
Morning is unkind
to a woman’s face”
All in all, Wimberley wields a poetic voice as clear and as true as a flute. It doesn’t take long to become enamored of her work. From start to finish, the reader dances to her tune and even after getting to the last melody, just doesn’t want to stop dancing. Dialect of Dahlias is clearly a passion play, an opera and a brilliant kaleidoscope view into the world of Gloria J. Wimberley. And that world is beckoning …
