Books

Review by Francis Sheppard

Von Crayon is primarily a performance poet. Her lines are short and closely rhymed, so that one can easily imagine the intensity of her readings, and the excited reception she would receive. As literature, the work has clarity and directness, is frequently sensuous, is always in passionate embrace with life.

Her great strength is in drawing lessons from her material. The experiences she confronts are many, and the message from them frequently uplifting:

For the universe is growing
Elevating us high
Forever it is growing
And so must you and I.

And yet she counterbalances with realistic detail. In the following lines there is recount of a distressing broken relationship,

So I’m here sitting
In my unmade bed
Unable to tidy the mess in my head.

The preceding text shows a dogged refusal to be beaten, and in the collection the love poetry outweighs the narratives of loss:

And even during sleepy unconsciousness
My body’s still so responsive.
Sparkles of morning mist
Meet the sun gently …

This is a book to give as a gift; the publication is high-end, with heavy papers suitable for the series of bright colour drawings with which it is populated. Or to buy and keep oneself, as a means to revisit Anna’s stunning gigs.