Night Court - Erica Goss

5 Stars

ADVANCE PRAISE -

“Night Court leaves us hungry for more of the poet’s open, probing, leaping intelligence, her ‘wild associations’ and surprises in the unexpected ‘shivering’ sweetness of a love story where ‘joy scrambles sadness.’ We hear ‘the clatter of souls entering bodies’ and experience ‘spring’s lizard stealth’ as sadness, longing and reluctance are transformed by breath-stopping beauty. Like a creature in the forest, the poet will ‘rub my cheek against the night.’ And she reminds us a prince waits, perhaps for centuries, until we wake.”
—Susan G. Wooldridge, author of poemcrazy: freeing your life with words

“No more / mindless syrup blunting / raw edges, // no more disguising things / with bland counterparts.’ The poems in Night Court are often starkly rendered, tough yet sensitive. Deeply imaginative, the poems describe a feral world also experienced by children, a world of hungry ghosts, magic, beasts and violence. ‘There’s a crack at the edge / of the world where the dark // and comic leak through’ Goss takes us to this illuminating place.”
— Robert S. Pesich, President, Poetry Center San Jose

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/POET -
Erica Goss is a poet and freelance writer. She served as Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, CA from 2013-2016. She is the author of Night Court, winner of the 2016 Lyrebird Award, Wild Place and Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations for Poets. Recent work appears in Lake Effect, Atticus Review, Contrary, Eclectica, The Red Wheelbarrow, Main Street Rag, Pearl, Rattle, Wild Violet, and Comstock Review, among others. She is co-founder of Media Poetry Studio, a poetry-and-film camp for teen girls: .
Please visit her website, Facebook page, LinkedIn, and Vimeo.

MY THOUGHTS -
Fantastic collection of poems!  There is such a variety and each one so deep, full of thought and feeling. When I was reading these I was not only struck by the poem as a whole but by each line itself.
For example - In the poem Night Court, these lines have so much meaning (to me) very thought provoking -
"I put my tragedies on the witness stand"
"They have sworn to tell the truth and nothing else"
And in the poem Cover -
"You take stock of your life,
how trash laps its edges..."
"Loose your anchors one by one."

This was one of my favorites -

Love Poem with Broken Things

I like to think of him as a small boy, disassembling
the old phonograph his father gave him.

When we moved in together,
he filled our garage with red metal

toolboxes, boxes with drawers
inside of drawers, stuffed with

wrenches of every conceivable size,
drill bits, washers, screws, and nails.

It seemed as if he knew our life ahead
contained a lot of broken things,

and he, for one, was prepared. Back then,
his boxes of tools annoyed me, tripped me,

forced me to park in the driveway.
But now, when I think our life cannot accept

another broken, hopeless thing,
I know that somewhere in the garage

he has a tool that will mend it, tighten it,
wire it or stabilize it, and if he doesn’t,

we’ve learned to let it go with a shrug,
like when he finally admitted he couldn’t

put the phonograph back together, and solemnly
handed the screwdriver back to his father.

These poems are so heartfelt, raw, and honest, some of them are even sad. They are not all happy happy joy joy. They will make you think, maybe even think about your own life. What each person will get from these, what each person takes away, how you feel, how they affect you - for each person, will be different. But I promise, you will feel something. At least one of these poem will hit you, slap you in the face or grab your heart.


Night Court from Erica Goss on Vimeo.

I voluntarily posted this review after receiving an audio copy of this book from Poetic Book Tours. Thank you! 

Order your copy from Amazon - HERE