Welcome to the Read Write Poem February Virtual Book Tour! Righteous Rightings is excited and honored to have been selected to share thoughts and opinions on Pamela Johnson Parker’s debut poetry collection A Walk Through the Memory Palace, winner of qarrtsiluni’s 2009 poetry chapbook contest. Pamela Johnson Parker’s poems, flash fiction, and essays have appeared in, or are forthcoming in Pebble Lake Review, Six Sentences, and New Madrid, among other highly regarded literary journals.
A Walk Through the Memory Palace is a poetry collection that exhibits the intricacies of romance, utilizes graphic language brilliantly to set environment, and playfully coaxes the reader to to discover what will enchant them next. The collection’s opening poem, 78 RPM, is a bashful scene portraying playful adolescent love and shyness. It is Parker’s technique of introducing tertiary characters, such as the belle’s aunt, that draws out the forbidden fondness and affections of the young gentleman caller in 78 RPM, most prominently presented in stanzas five and six:
Of black scratchy “wax”
Places it on the Victrola,
Says, I’ll be back in
A shake, you two, and
Disappears inside. As
They heavy arm angles.
The subtle introduction of the aunt as an authoritative presence in this scene aids to instill family value and southern cultural tradition without explicitly overstating it. This hinting couples with the atmosphere of the porch beautifully to further depict an element of challenge for the anxious Romeo, as Parker continues in stanzas eight through ten:
Down the record’s groove,
As he skates a single
FInger along the sun-
Bleached down of your
Arm, and as you
Start to shake,
Heart rising and
Falling like Billie’s
Song, cool water poured.
Another favorite from Pamela Johnson Parker’s A Walk Through the Memory Palace is First Anniversary: Reading Russian Literature. This piece had me chuckling and evaluating my own relationship, identifying with the quirks and joyful fumbles of the modest couple serving as subjects. Parker wonderfully sets a humble table of romance as she delivers in stanzas three and four:
How our skin’s slicked with sweat - too hot to
Sleep (or even stand); how all we can
Afford is this: back porch, spiked tea, spotting
These slugs. Each pairs a heat - slick valentine,
Drooping below the bleeding hearts you snitched
From a neighbor’s garden - swollen pouts that
Blossom in shadow - and, like slugs, salt will
Melt them both. Sugar cube, tea cup, modeled
A Walk Through the Memory Palace is a beautiful collection on the whole, however Parker is not without detraction; two poems in particular being Archaic Fragments and Engendering: For Two Voices. Both pieces step out of voice and presentation from the rest of the collection, serving more as snags in continuity. Engendering: For Two Voices is conceptually strong, but fails to clearly distinguish the narration between subjects. The architecture of the poem is distracting and too abstract for the nature of the scene, yet my slight criticism on syntax and form are minor nits when viewing the collection in its entirety. Aside from the aforementioned poems, A Walk Through the Memory Palace is a diverse chapbook of poetry for the contemporary and traditional reader alike. Pamela Johnson Parker landscapes a lifetime of the human experience, successfully painting through delicate letters the relationships we breathe.
Pamela Johnson Parker is a medical editor and adjunct professor in creative writing and poetry. Her inaugural collection A Walk Through the Memory Palace was the winner of qarrtsiluni’s 2009 poetry chapbook contest. Her poems, flash fiction, and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Binnacle, The Other Journal, New Madrid, Pebble Lake Review, Holly Rose Review, Six Sentences, MiPOesias, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, and Anti-. She is also the featured poet in the April 2009 Broadsided series of poetry and art. A graduate of the MFA program at Murray State University, Parker lives in western Kentucky.
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