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"Barbary Chaapel's No Name Harbor offers the sparkle of the sunlit surf, the mystery of an archeological find, and the richness and good taste of double-fudge brownies. Her work provides both discovery and delight."
Dr. Barbara Smith, co-editor, Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950-1999
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"Barbary Chaapel's poems, beautiful in precision and deep with understanding, are weighted with the experience of the body in its earthly entrapments/paradise where sunsets, ice, trees, stranger and friends, pets and wild creatures are loved, feared or sometimes just endured. Yet in her poetry an inner vision rises like mysterious vapor over all of these sensory details, the heart yearns, the soul settles on a branch and sings. And we listen with held breath."
Dr. Sandra Vrana, editor, Grab A Nickel
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BOOK REVIEW
No Name Harbor. Barbary Chaapel. Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 2006. 81 pp.
$14.95.
Barbary Chaapel’s No Name Harbor is a finely crafted book of poetry that describes and examines elemental implications of existence as signified by the four divisions of Earth, Sea, Sky, and Fire. In the Earth section the poet touches enigmatically on life lived in its daily pain and joy and mystery, themes that include mother-daughter likeness and separateness, child abuse, tangled family emotions, the lives and deaths of animals. The second section, Sea, brings us the poet’s experiences as a sailor with her husband: their joys in sun and surf, haunting encounters with other people and with nature, the wayfarers’ secret hearts revealed. In the third section, Sky [Air], the poet muses on nature, on inner states and spiritual quests; and in Fire of the fourth section we find poems of love, desire, and passionate memory.
The poems of the Earth section are irradiated by human relationships, early and late, familial and new-forged, compassionate or predatory. In “Her Face, My Face,” for example, the speaker, gathered with her siblings in the hospital where her mother lies, perhaps on her death bed, begins with the line, “My wrist has womb memory,” to introduce her thoughts on how unlearned physical mannerisms reflect her connection to her mother. “The Snowman’s Child,” a darkly mysterious poem, suggests how a child who is forbidden to speak the truth of sexual abuse by a father figure still “blooms but never beyond / The edge of that field, / Those stones.”
In the section entitled Sea the poems tell of people hailed and met, like “Old William Farrington and his last child, Cynthia, / [who] Stop at the fishing boats for take-home” (“Nassau Harbor Near Paradise Bridge”); or of others perhaps only imagined, like the storm-tossed Haitians on a ship whose “Urine-spattered timbers [are] / saturated with spent hopes” (“Gusting to Zero”). Here, too, we find “sun-worn sails” and “a blizzard of white stars” (“Celestial Navigation”); the happiness of “rum in a jelly coconut” (“Bluewater Celebration”), or a lonely figure whose “slow waltz into cold dark grape” of sea waters spells his end (“What Name, Where Bound”).
The poems in Sky have perhaps the most beautiful imagery of the book. For instance, the speaker in “Solstice,” as a warm day fades, announces, “Some shimmering thing is drawing near. / I will not go inside tonight.” And in the remarkable “When Sunlight Swallows the World,” a poem praising nature’s creations—dogwood bloom, luna moth, trees, black bear—there is the beautiful last stanza:
And I sing of the season yet unknown.
The fifth season—Gloria in Excelsis,
When all become winged,
In absolute rapture
Fly away.
The Fire section blazes indeed: a speaker’s heart sings, in a variety of moods, for her beloved. In “Paradigm” the speaker and her lover are together in three lives, two past and the present one. In the first life the lovers eat supper, “Hearts shot through with fire. / Lilacs at the window scenting dusk.” In the second, the speaker’s love stands in the door frame, “Wanting, waiting to pierce my heart.” In the present life, “Always we meet when I am nineteen. / I am the arrow in his heart.” The wonderfully offbeat poem “Death By Chocolate Brownies” strikes a saucy but equally passionate note. “Cupid’s arrow is still quivering. / It’s for sure ruined my shirt, maybe my heart.” Most of the remaining lines of the poem present an actual recipe for “brownies to die for. / Is he going to love me forever or what!”
This group of poems ranges widely, from melancholy to sunny to ecstatic to fun-filled. It is a book to come back to again and again when in need of mature, intelligent reflections wrought in a generous heart. Always Barbary Chaapel writes with her eyes wide open to the actual world while that third eye of spiritual perception turns inward to describe the treasures she has gathered there....
Sandy Vrana
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"Everyone who reads poetry will revel in Barbary Chaapel's wide range of subjects that are genuine, earthy, domestic, approachable and beautifully weathered in love."
Eleanor Bush, author of A Checklist of the Flora of Barbour County, West Virginia, 2004
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"Barbary Chaapel writes from her heart, a heart of deep understanding, of human relationships and our relationship with the natural world around us. Her poetry is exquisite and beautiful, easy to read, and full of longing."
Cheryl Denise, author of I Saw God Dancing
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"Ms. Chaapel's poetry is not only from the heart, it is clear, concise and powerful, always a pleasure to read."
The Reverend Charles Ramp, author of Sophia In The City
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Amazon.com reveiw:
Barbary Chaapel expresses the beauty, intensity, pain and spiritual depths of life on Earth in poetry that sings. Check it out.
Karen Coit.
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An Evocative Collection of Poetry, May 11, 2006
Reviewer: Mary Sue Kessell Rosen (New York City)
Barbary Chaapel's No Name Harbor is a collection of poetry that reads like a memoir. This book is a gem, one with a beautiful organic flow from start to finish. I felt as though I was going on a journey as soon as I began with No Name Harbor, her first poem in this collection of 56 poems. She is a woman who is knowledgeable about rural life, and she takes the reader to many places close to nature and the environment: "frostbite mountains," "warm azure sea," "Estuaries, hawk in flight," and "Lilacs at the window, scenting dusk."
I never like to compare one writer to another, but those who enjoy Barbara Kingsolver's writing will enjoy this collection. Barbary Chaapel invites you to be present with her. In the process, you remember your own "No name harbor."
Throughout this collection, rich sensory images abound with heartfelt passion and appreciation for the natural world. As a reader you pause more than once to think about what it means to respect and embrace the environment. Barbary Chaapel's world is accessible through poetry. "Her Face, My Face" (originally published in Wild Sweet Notes, Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry, l950-1999) is a favorite poem of mine on mother/daughter relationships. Another strong portrait is in Stonecoal Lake.
You cannot forget the delicious power of food in her poem titled "Wash Day." Here you find: "Brown beans are always pintos" in the first line. In the final stanza, "For dessert, moist cornbread crumbed/Into tall glasses of cold buttermilk." This certainly brought home to me my own roots growing up in West Virginia. When it comes to the culinary delights, she completely outdoes herself with poetic pleasure in the poem titled "Death By Chocolate Brownies." You want to go out right away and get the ingredients and start baking. People who enjoy reading creative cookbooks would also enjoy this poetry collection.
There is something in No Name Harbor for everyone, especially the people who enjoy memoirs and poetry with an emphasis on looking at the little things in daily life-the moments that are special, the moments that are a part of our rituals with family and friends. What is here has an enduring quality. Barbary Chaapel gracefully renders what she knows and values with a voice resonating with a sincere appreciation for discovering the small treasures in life.
Mary Sue Kessell Rosen is the author from Appalachia to Africa and Other footsteps and is on the faculty at The New School in New York City. She is working on another poetry collection focused on Africa.
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