Narrow Bridge

by Barbara Pelman

tagged: women authors, canadian, family

Description

“All the world is a narrow bridge,” states Rabbi Nachman of Bresnov. “The important thing is not to be afraid at all.” These poems, Barbara Pelman’s third collection, explore bridges both real and metaphoric: the bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden where her family lives; the bridges she has travelled across Europe; and the bridges we build through words and actions to overcome our separateness from one another. The poet writes about lovers, mothers, daughters, ex-husbands, grandchildren, and her attempts to construct solid foundations for the heart to travel across time and space. Pelman writes of her love of landscapes and the things in them, as well as the everyday epiphanies that happen in one’s backyard. These are poems that explore the tension between living in one place but wanting to be in another, the losses and freedoms contained in solitude, the process of learning to age gracefully. The act of writing, Pelman says, is itself a talisman against fear, a mantra of boldness and courage to live con spirito.

About the Author

Barbara Pelman has an MA in Literature from the University of Toronto, and lives in Victoria, BC. She has taught high school and university English courses for three decades and is now retired. She has three books of poetry: One Stone (Ekstasis Editions, 2005), Borrowed Rooms (Ronsdale Press, 2008) and Narrow Bridge (Ronsdale Press, 2017), and a chapbook Aubade Amalfi (Rubicon Press, 2016). Many of her poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, and her glosa, “Nevertheless,” won the Malahat Review Poetry Contest in 2018. She is an active member of Victoria’s vibrant poetry community, assisting at Planet Earth Poetry and conducting workshops. She is also a frequent traveller to Vancouver to visit her mother, and her daughter and grandson.

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