Review of What Lasts by Sylvia Byrne Pollack
With a title that works as query plus declaration, Sylvia Byrne Pollack’s second full-length collection, What Lasts, delves into the impact of mood disorders on her life. Pollack weaves in poems of nature, climate change, hometown, her mother, hearing loss, love, and aging.
The first poem, “Libra,” compares life to being in a circus. Think of performing in a highwire act during bi-polar highs, living in a world of metaphor, and the vigilance of surveying one’s footing. “Here at the circus, / thrills and elephant dung mix with straw, sweat, // and spun-sugar candy.”
Drawing on eight decades of life experiences, Pollack’s lyric poems take on the flavor of memoir. Reading the poem “If I Had Regrets,” she replays Rilke’s advice to “go to the limits of your longings,” even though “it’s too late now to know / what might have happened // if.” As the research Professor Emeritus that she is, Pollack likens life to experiments without any control groups.
Poems transition from hometown nostalgia to mental health challenges of adulthood. In “Broken Pattern,” powerful images introduce a driven scientific researcher’s highs, which would “seize, transport me briefly / through the clouds on raptor wings” until the time to “plunge straight through normal, // farther to a “dank cellar crypt, / left there, sometimes for months,” followed by the long dark climb “to normal’s floor.” The beauty of painful metaphors!
A character shows up in her poems, one who instigates emotional upheaval. The poem, “Letitia Enters, Stage Left” complains:
Letitia waltzed in through a drug-opened door,
distracted me from my sons, my work,
my marriage. At first, she shone brilliantly
paid rent in radiant energy. I warmed to her,
bright addition to our household, used her oomph
at home, at work. But she turned, dragged me into despair.
Too dark in that murk to see dust on the harpsichord
I no longer cared to play. I wanted her gone.
As equilibrium approaches, the exhilarating persona comes centerstage in “Letitia Answers a Diagnostic Questionnaire.” We read that at times “the world is a brassy, fantasy-filled carnival” which never lasts, and that “Sometimes, like porridge, it’s just right – not too hot, / not too cold, but bland as a bowl at breakfast.”
Romantic poems follow, which suggest that the quotidian may be optimal, in fact, exciting. The poems “Sizzle” and “Steadfast” hold up marital love in tribute to support the poet has received from her wife, Molly, to whom the former poem is dedicated.
A poem, “One Day I Will Love Letitia,” suggests that successful management of mood disorders includes integration and acceptance of unique personality variations.
The last lines of the final poem, “Instructions for a Summer Day,” provide a beautiful metaphor for the positive effects of time, memory, and healing:
The tide turns, wave by languid wave
reclaims the beach for creatures
of the intertidal zone: sea stars, limpets
barnacles, anemones. Liminal like you
they’re neither here nor there but both –
adapted to constant change and thriving.
How fitting that this final poem ends with the word, “thriving.” Sylvia Byrne Pollack has given us a book full of lyrical images that show us how nourishing relationships and memories are fundamental—they are “What Lasts.” She writes about mental health challenges with her signature wit that makes the collection a beguiling and inspiring ride.
The first poem, “Libra,” compares life to being in a circus. Think of performing in a highwire act during bi-polar highs, living in a world of metaphor, and the vigilance of surveying one’s footing. “Here at the circus, / thrills and elephant dung mix with straw, sweat, // and spun-sugar candy.”
Drawing on eight decades of life experiences, Pollack’s lyric poems take on the flavor of memoir. Reading the poem “If I Had Regrets,” she replays Rilke’s advice to “go to the limits of your longings,” even though “it’s too late now to know / what might have happened // if.” As the research Professor Emeritus that she is, Pollack likens life to experiments without any control groups.
Poems transition from hometown nostalgia to mental health challenges of adulthood. In “Broken Pattern,” powerful images introduce a driven scientific researcher’s highs, which would “seize, transport me briefly / through the clouds on raptor wings” until the time to “plunge straight through normal, // farther to a “dank cellar crypt, / left there, sometimes for months,” followed by the long dark climb “to normal’s floor.” The beauty of painful metaphors!
A character shows up in her poems, one who instigates emotional upheaval. The poem, “Letitia Enters, Stage Left” complains:
Letitia waltzed in through a drug-opened door,
distracted me from my sons, my work,
my marriage. At first, she shone brilliantly
paid rent in radiant energy. I warmed to her,
bright addition to our household, used her oomph
at home, at work. But she turned, dragged me into despair.
Too dark in that murk to see dust on the harpsichord
I no longer cared to play. I wanted her gone.
As equilibrium approaches, the exhilarating persona comes centerstage in “Letitia Answers a Diagnostic Questionnaire.” We read that at times “the world is a brassy, fantasy-filled carnival” which never lasts, and that “Sometimes, like porridge, it’s just right – not too hot, / not too cold, but bland as a bowl at breakfast.”
Romantic poems follow, which suggest that the quotidian may be optimal, in fact, exciting. The poems “Sizzle” and “Steadfast” hold up marital love in tribute to support the poet has received from her wife, Molly, to whom the former poem is dedicated.
A poem, “One Day I Will Love Letitia,” suggests that successful management of mood disorders includes integration and acceptance of unique personality variations.
The last lines of the final poem, “Instructions for a Summer Day,” provide a beautiful metaphor for the positive effects of time, memory, and healing:
The tide turns, wave by languid wave
reclaims the beach for creatures
of the intertidal zone: sea stars, limpets
barnacles, anemones. Liminal like you
they’re neither here nor there but both –
adapted to constant change and thriving.
How fitting that this final poem ends with the word, “thriving.” Sylvia Byrne Pollack has given us a book full of lyrical images that show us how nourishing relationships and memories are fundamental—they are “What Lasts.” She writes about mental health challenges with her signature wit that makes the collection a beguiling and inspiring ride.
Sylvia Byrne Pollack, author of Risking It (2021, Red Mountain Press), grew up in Batavia, NY. She earned a B.A. in Zoology (Syracuse University), a Ph.D. in Developmental Biology (University of Pennsylvania) and a M.A. in psychology (Antioch University-Seattle). Now a Research Professor Emeritus after a long career in cancer research at the University of Washington, Sylvia decided to focus on poetry following a trip to Antarctica in 2007. Her poems have appeared in many print and online journals including Floating Bridge Review, Crab Creek Review, Quartet Journal, and The Stillwater Review. She is a two-time Pushcart nominee, won the 2013 Mason's Road Winter Literary Award, was a 2019 Jack Straw Writer and a 2021 Mineral School Resident.
Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared widely in publications including Raven Chronicles, Deep Wild, and Banshee, as well as in anthologies, such as Sing the Salmon Home. Her second chapbook, Taking Leave, was published by Kelsay Books (2024). Book reviews by Talley appear online and in print journals, such as Compulsive Reader, Crab Creek Review, and Asheville Poetry Review.
Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared widely in publications including Raven Chronicles, Deep Wild, and Banshee, as well as in anthologies, such as Sing the Salmon Home. Her second chapbook, Taking Leave, was published by Kelsay Books (2024). Book reviews by Talley appear online and in print journals, such as Compulsive Reader, Crab Creek Review, and Asheville Poetry Review.