The Unfinished Journey Paperback – April 13, 2012

The cover attracted my attention to this poetry anthology. It was a unique surrealistic image of a belly dancer with a bird in her hand and a sphinx on a leash. I loved it! There were several other illustrations that impressed me. My favorite was the man playing a flute for dancing animals with human female faces. It illustrated the best poem in the anthology.“The Poet is Sleeping in Kanlica” is addressed to the poet father of the author. I imagine that he would have been proud of this particular effort. It’s simply beautiful. The imagery is sophisticated and well developed. The rhythm is consistent. I smiled as I read it aloud. Firdevs Dede produced a poem that was worthy of her father.Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the rest of the anthology. The author is writing in a language that is not her first. If a poet who isn’t a native English speaker wants to publish her work in English, she needs an editor to let her know when her phrasing is awkward or infelicitous, and to give her suggestions for revision. Word choice is even more important in poetry than in prose. A poem is a pattern of words. They must be the right words to complete the pattern. I often felt like an English as a Second Language instructor going over a student’s assignment while I was reading this book. Aside from the English usage issue, I also found eight typographical errors.The majority of these poems used no poetic techniques except for arrangement of the words. Many people think that this is perfectly acceptable in modern poetry. There are some well-known published poets whose work is entirely made up of prose arranged in the form of a poem. I call this chopped prose. The only poem in this category that pleased me is “Diet”. At least that sample of chopped prose was flavorful. Otherwise chopped prose isn’t to my taste. I prefer poetry with developed imagery, alliteration, assonance and rhythm. There were some poems in this collection with a stanza or two that was rhythmic, but then the rhythm would vanish. I was accompanying the poet on a rhythmic journey like the chugging of a train, and was suddenly left abandoned on the side of the track.It doesn’t make me feel good to write disparaging things about a poetry anthology. Each time I started a new poem in The Unfinished Journey I had high hopes for it. I wish I wasn’t disappointed in Firdevs Dede’s poetry so often. I think that I would enjoy a book of her drawings. Some of her art work was interesting and unusual.