'Breaking the Silence'. Review of Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence by Lorna Crozier

Abstract

In Lorna Crozier's best poetry we hear a story - and the other side of the story. Her accessible language makes it easy for us to listen the first time, and her insights challenge us to return. As the title suggests, this is a collection of poems about angels. Not the heavenly kind you normally think of - Crozier explains very early on that they have abandoned the troubled twentieth century, "boarding up their windows/and leaving one by one." I think Crozier's poems are examples of the best part of what women talk about. They belong to that form we generally call conversation. And the purpose of Crozier's poetic conversation is to break the silences that we have so often imposed on certain subjects. You know, the kind of awkward silences you sometimes have at a dinner table - when you say that "angels must be flying overhead."