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Splinters of Glass: Poetry of a Life Reviewed By Frances Roberts Reilly of Bookpleasures.com
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Frances Roberts-Reilly

Reviewer Frances Roberts-Reilly: Frances is a poet, writer and filmmaker. She has published numerous short stories, articles and poems and she has been a guest author on CBC Radio. She began writing seriously in 1972, whilst working at BBC television in London, England. After making award-winning documentaries, she earned an Honors degree in English Literature at the University of Toronto. Her Green Man chapbook is published by Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS). Frances is author of KPMG’s Corporate Responsibility Report 2008.

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By Frances Roberts-Reilly
Published on September 7, 2016
 

Author: Arleen Watson

Publisher: Soul Attitude Press
ISBN: 978-1-939181-79-4



Author: Arleen Watson

Publisher: Soul Attitude Press
ISBN: 978-1-939181-79-4

Author: Arleen Watson

Publisher: Soul Attitude Press
ISBN: 978-1-939181-79-4

An opus to never giving up on life

Arleen Watson’s Splinters of Glass: Poetry of a Life is a posthumously published collection of confessional poetry in the tradition of American poets, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Sharon Olds.

This highly personal account of Watson’s complex life and familial ties deals with her bi polar condition that was never openly discussed with her family. By recording her emotions on paper the promise of publication has been fulfilled by her daughter, Donna Watson. In turn, this poetry has helped Donna to come to terms with her unconventional upbringing and their relationship by exhibiting how her mother overcame obstacles and found the internal strength to survive her own life and traumas.

As for the poetics, this collection is divided into eight topics, beginning with the topic of Loneliness and its emotional pain, setting the melancholic and bleak tone for the entire book. Broken into sparest of lines that reflect the roller coaster bi polar ride, the reader is led into the inner life of Watson. By trimming her language to the bone, writing Advice to the Lonely hers is an invisible suffering, coping involves “Walking carefully on the bright, unfeeling world” without showing to the outside world any glimmer of her deeply held secret.

Though short lived, travel has an uplifting and animating affect of touching her spirit and soul. Her poems on New York and Nassau would seem to promise a time of rebirth as in the line, “Spring in New York is always new.” And the poem Rocks in the Sun (Nassau) expresses a rare insight when “The Captain of the moment and my soul”, moves her to write.

However, Watson’s scars lie too close to the surface and she is compelled to provide a map for a flame “has leapt high and bright” illuminating “places I dare not go.” Seeking self-isolation, her poem The House, shows the poet building walls against pain and thus, life and love. Even her children cannot penetrate, which her daughter notes so well in the Introduction. A failure addressed in her poem Next Generation, “We falter on a string too short/what of our children now?”

Music would seem to offer some comfort. In Rhapsody she describes music as “My beloved friend.” Men, on the other hand are a continual source of disappointment in matters of love. She finds consolation in her male doctors and their many kindnesses. Although one wonders whether these are internal conversations taking place in her own head.

Because the poetry stands on its own merits, I have avoided in my review using the label “mental illness” with its tendency to use the narrative of pathology. Rather this poetry shows how suffering can have meaning, a healing trope of overcoming mental illness.


Watson’s work is all too human and her poetics of vulnerability and loss will stand the test of time while deeply touching many who read her. Arleen Watson’s life story is a beacon of hope for those of us who never give up on life and our dreams. Splinters of Glass as it draws on her life is Watson’s opus, ensuring she and her poetic soul remain a legacy, visible to the world.