A Unison of Breaths by our regular Central Bylines contributor Lynda Tavakoli is a new book of poems that makes a fascinating read
A Unison of Breaths is akin to an ancient mosaic floor with its cracked ceramic pieces that make up the beautiful geometric design of life. Each piece holds the memory of people both past and present, a unison of breaths.
When I sat down to read Lynda Tavakoli’s new book of poems it was on a flight back to Bali. Initially I flipped through the book, put it aside and then picked it up again when the cabin fell silent. The only other sound was the hoarse breathing of a child lying in the arms of her mother sitting in the row behind me.
I had the pleasure of working with Lynda on her ebook, The Greying Wood of Trees, A Dementia Anthology (May 2024). And so, this gave me a sense of ‘knowing the poet’, an essential prerequisite to understanding and appreciating her new collection of poems.
There are 64 poems. A kaleidoscope of words, creating images, that makes a fascinating read, and rattles the senses.
Homage to family
Her family features prominently in the opening pages with the dedication to her sister, Jean and a number of poems featuring her beloved mother as we see in ‘Cold Tea’:
In the good room of our small bungalow
Mum read tea leaves from china cups
Rescued from the Oxfam shop
her slight frame and unassuming manner
a mere subterfuge for her divining skills
And then in ‘Requiem For The Unbeliever’:
I lost my faith one dog-damp afternoon
In our mother’s sitting room,
Where her two-bar electric fire
Sizzled heat in the unfamiliar space of her leaving
In this poem one witnesses the struggle of the poet to accept the finality of death whilst standing in the presence of her mother’s ‘space’. Perhaps the relationship between mother and daughter had been left in an unfinished mode, with ‘faith’ being shrugged off for fear of accepting the finality of death, after life, and what might be waiting in the unknown.
This is followed by ‘Why You Should Always Listen To Your Mother’:
When my daughter got her ears pierced
she crumpled to the tiles like a sudden
She had done everything properly
exhalation of some ancient accordion
The savagery of humankind
Lynda takes us on a detour from familial encounters to the savagery of humankind in ‘The Letting (Auschwitz/Birkenau)’:
There remains yet the odour of absence
and a silent keening of ghosts
that suppurates in weeping walls.
On stoned pathways the hushed footfall
of the dead still treads its beat,
marking time for souls selected
for their usefulness,
a finger’s point away from
one more beating heart or none.
The imagery of desolation and hope comes through in ‘When the Rains Failed’:
When the rains failed nothing grew,
and wasted seeds dimpled dry earth
like buckshot. Yet words still spoke
behind the shroud of her eyes-
words that painted promises;
sorghum, baobab, cassava, akkerboon-
she ensured the children’s tongues
would never snag in their telling.
And as the pages turn one comes to ‘The Sadness of Crows’ a poem that leaves the reader with a sense of unbelonging.
Before the day opens its eyes,
on a fence
two black crows,
their thistle throat
rinsing the morning
with sorrow.
If I could
I would offer them
the fragile bones
of a vanished chick,
its soul seeping quietly
into warm-dug earth.
Legacy and acceptance of fate
Lynda has set many traps for the reader in this collection. From childhood recollection to ‘What Remains’ leaves the ‘onlooker’ struggling to grasp the handle of sanity.
‘Please will you come and see my war crime?’
Of everything
this is what finally broke me –
the request small, polite.
A father.
The body of his dead boy
in a coffin car of cold and bloody dark.
The last poem, Endings, explains what this collection is about – the acceptance of our fate, our kismet, and perhaps the legacy that we leave behind.
Death meets us all,
spilling its shadow
into the unknown;
the curve of our live
completing itself in endings
frayed by private histories
And those we leave behind
will know their grief the same;
the privileged, the ordinary,
whose sorrow sings on different winds,
yet every song a sharing
of its own ineffable loss.
Reading A Unison of Breaths brings with it an apprehension of sorts. How can one really understand what the poet, Lynda, is communicating? Words dilute the essence of thought. Readers from different cultures can often find hidden gems where the poet thinks there are none. And it is this discovery that makes A Unison of Breaths so ‘fulfilling’ (for want of a better word).
I have touched upon only a handful of poems from this rich collection. There are a lot more gems waiting to be discovered by readers from around the world. This book begs to be translated into other languages.
Highly recommended for those who like to carry a poetry book to read on a journey.
This is an edited version of an article first published in Live Encounters magazine. Read the original article.
