Escritoire
Sheila E. Murphy
Sheila E. Murphy’s Escritoire continues to garner thoughtful reviews. Check out these samples and links.
Daniel Barbiero writes in Arteidolia:
…Murphy reaches out into the world and playfully acknowledges and accepts it for what it offers. She pays close attention to the ordinary, which in the right light can reveal an extraordinary sensual richness and solicit a resonant affective response. … In the end, it’s difficult to sum up a set of poems as formally and thematically varied as those in Escritoire but – its self-deprecating irony aside – perhaps this line from “I Never Knew” comes closest: “Vocabulary seasoned with glints of wit and spice.”
Rupert Loydell, writing for Tears in the Fence (UK):
Sheila Murphy’s poetry always managed to surprise this reader, with its unusual musicality and associative language, it’s mix of seemingly distanced but also emotionally charged and possibly autobiographical or confessional content. Escritoire is no exception, although I detect a new playfulness and self-awareness at work. … Murphy’s arrangement and rearrangement of these echoing and intertwining lines suggest counterpoint or a set of musical variations in which fixed melodies occur and reoccur in different harmonic and other contexts.
Murphy’s musicality, both at the thematic and formal levels, is mentioned by most reviewers. Alan Catlin, in Misfit Magazine, continues this theme, noting:
Reading Murphy is like listening to Bach, recapitulating fugues, themes introduced, explored, re-enforced by repetition until they become something entirely new. Few poets can do this but Murphy, a musician herself, most assuredly can.
And more reviews, for various publications, are in the works. Grab your copy and see what they’re talking about.