Beverly Burch: The Latter Days of Eve at Gallery 2727

Latter Days of Eve: Poems by Beverly Burch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Published 25 May 2023 as “Poetic Expressions” in The Berkeley Times, “Knox Book Beat.”

The 2727 Gallery “Multi-Use Event and Program Space, Residential/Studio Space” at 27th and California was a lovely place for Poetry Flash to host a poetry reading for Robert Thomas’ 2023 Sonnets with Two Torches and One Cliff and Beverly Burch’s 2022 Leave Me A Little Want in the early, chilly days of spring.

Both books proved a marvelous delight, but Ms. Burch’s addition of Latter Days of Eve, one of those “left behind” releases of 2019, became a wonderful boon. Taking Back Old: Poetry Celebrating Old Women, 2022, came in the mail and rounded out some of the “almost lost” years of pandemic publishing with Berkeley’s hidden flowerings and roots.

A lot of F2F events in Berkeley “got cancelled” for two years, but that didn’t mean we all stopped writing or wanting to share. So it was fine to munch, raise a glass, schmooze and hear fine, magical words and heartening thoughts and feelings among aficionados of small press poetry and the spoken word.

Beverly Burch’s A Little Want was mostly very good, but her Latter Days of Eve was definitely excellent, and won awards like the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry to prove it.

I have been wondering a lot about women and men, boys and girls; about love, desire, power and control. (like for 55 years or more?) She is a Berkeley psychotherapist (you have my sympathy), and I felt she unsheathed my tough, coarse, protective, snakelike skin as I read her wonderful poems. (“Difficult” mothers and religious upbringings are hard “crosses to bear.”)

So right, so RIGHT! Brava!

Latter Days of Eve, Beverly Burch, 2022 , BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
 

Wonderful Wordsmiths: Thomas, Burch and Welch

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