A Debut Poetry Collection from a Master Teacher—Cathy Hailey

 

 

A lot is packed into Cathy Hailey’s Finishing Line Press chapbook I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth. All the poems are haiku sonnets. She tells us she learned about this form in The Poetry Gymnasium by Tom Hunley. With a few words to each line, she constructs Shakespearian sonnets with four haiku (most stanzas following the five-seven-five syllable count in three lines) and one rhymed couplet.

 

Most of the poems deal with nature, either the physical world or human nature as in behavior. There are also ekphrastic poems, the greater number of these describing dance performances. “Under the Sun,” her opening poem about a vase invokes movement and sensation in most lines, a call to find life in seemingly still manmade art.

 

Under the Sun (an excerpt)

 

Helios ascends,

bursting urns of golden fire,

glazing graceful winds.

 

Rhapsodizing lyre

song, strummed by Apollo’s hand,

transcends bound canvas.

 

…

 

The overall title of the collection is found in her last poem of section II.

 

In Life…

 

Hyacinths, Purple—

baby blooms adding stress, weight—

instinct maternal.

 

Tulips variegate

orange-yellow, dancing, coy,

above troupes of green,

 

singular pride, joy

even with no breeze.

In life, I’d rather

 

be a hyacinth,

embrace the role of mother,

live the labyrinth,

 

loved by a brood of florets—

barycenter of orbits.

 

The poet sees the hyacinth as a mother figure which transcends earthly boundaries as the “barycenter of orbits,” an outer space phenomenon where two or more bodies orbit one another. Elevation and transcendence are what the poet has her creative eye attuned to.

 

This brings The Dresser to the stunningly beautiful image Cathy Hailey created for the cover of I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth. The image combines a rosebud with the hint of a human profile, butterfly wings as shoulders, a lush display of purple leaves (looking like a ballet tutu), and a pair of stems that seem to represent legs and feet in ballet toe slippers.

 

But there is one more thing to notice and that’s the final poem and the only poem in Section III entitled “Afterword”. Hailey makes a swipe at “long-winded verse in “In Closing”. The ending couplet redeems:

 

In Closing (excerpts)

 

To curb long-winded

verse—haiku, haiku sonnet—

excess rescinded.

 

…

 

There’s magic in condensing,

precision in expressing.

 

Like many William Shakespeare plays, Hailey provides an epilogue to her collection of haiku sonnets. I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth is a notable first collection from a poet who is gathering her power after years of teaching others about poetry and writing.