Catbird

This beautiful collection illuminates the poet's journey from girlhood to widowhood. "Still, Papa, somehow you conveyed to me/quiet is where you go to get soul things out" she writes in "Tough Guy," a childhood memory poem. In "Catbird," the title poem of the book, humor interrupts grieving..."I loved her once/when I saw her lipstick hidden under the pillow./Like Marlene Dietrich in "Dishonored,"/applying lipstick before the firing squad,/no pale mouth would greet eternity."/Barbara Alfaro's poems have appeared in various journals including The Blue Mountain Review, Variant Literature and Poet Lore.