Reviews for The Woman on the Bridge over the Chicago River

The average rating for The Woman on the Bridge over the Chicago River based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-11-10 00:00:00 John Sholin This collection was overall fairly solid, but seemed to be somehow lacking in brilliance. Unlike in her later Waxworks: Poems, in Wooroloo, Hughes makes little to no effort to create a unified feel to the collection of poems. This is not necessarily a bad thing (most collections are just that, collections of independent works), but after her wonderful use of the museum conceit in Waxworks I was hoping for a similar degree of unity from this book. Like Waxworks, Wooroloo was very hit-and-miss. It had a few truly fabulous pieces, my favorites were "George" and "Birds", but it also had a number of poems that were very poor showings. Pieces like "Walrus" and "Giraffes" tried to function as a kind of allegorical exploration of existence, but fell flat, and Hughes' more personal pieces, like "Granny" and "Readers" tended to feel like conscious imitations of her mother's confessional style, but with an element of petulance (particularly in "Granny") that is not to be found in Sylvia Plath. Others, like "Laszlo" and "Teenager", just seem somewhat pointless but are not redeemed by language. The language is similarly variable. Sometimes, Hughes' words are undeniably and remarkably iridescent, as in "Tiger": "The black slices on/Auburn red flashes/Like sun splitting thin/Black slate."; "Hysterectomy": "No threads stringing eggs like small beads/Across the bottom of an ice box"; and "George": His scuttle body, thin as a mantis Was tied to his twig, and each one Swung the other. We called to him. His long, thin load raised itself Expecting to be wrong. These moments of perfection occur enough to justify reading the collection, but not enough to hold what it would seem, at first glance, to promise. Some of the poems, particularly those filled with anger and images of decay, fall apart when sound is brought forward. The seeming inattention to the sound of many of the poems deprives them of a great deal of power that may have been otherwise available to Hughes and her discerning eye. The sense that there should be more to many pieces, like "Tiger" damages their success--a poem about a tiger does not need to mean anything beyond an effective capturing of the animal,but lines like "It eats to become/Its father" imply a further theme that Hughes does not quite get around to exploring. This is most true in the animal poems, all of which seem to hint at an intent that is not realized, and in "Nothing". In this very intriguing poem, Hughes makes "nothing" an active participant. but them almost reaches to make a point when she says "Their breath//Is the breath I would give you when nothing/Nothing is a small planet." Hughes is constantly playing with the meanings behind the poems, but often fails to provide enough "stuff" to work with when trying to construct those ideas as a reader. All in all, Wooroloo is a good, but deeply flawed collection of poems. It has some moments of genius and a few absolute disasters, but it is, for the most part, a collection of poems that "almost were". This makes it a reasonably enjoyable, but also frustrating read.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-09-05 00:00:00 User Novell I read this collection of poems by Frieda again recently. I heard her read it when I was at Smith College as a freshman. Frieda is the daughter of Sylvia Plath and Tom Hughes. My favorite poem in it is Readers. It is about her mother, her mother's death and how personal and, in some aspect violating the interpretation of her mother's work and death was deciphered by the public. She plays with words in a way that makes me want to be a writer-or, I suppose a writer like her. One of my favorite lines of all time is also from this poem, it is the kind of line you wish you had written once you read it. I liken it to when a musician hears a song, and is moved by a line and thinks, "Damn, that's good-I wish I had written that." I have many favorite lines in this poem, but one in particular that struck me was: "They fingered through her mental underwear with every piece she wrote." I know it's simple-and it may not impact you as it did me. But the concept of fingering through one's mental underwear made me realize when the literary world turned Sylvia's work upside down and inside out in an attempt to find meaning and answers, they also did this to her daughter. That isn't a criticism of critics, as their role is to interpret, understand and evaluate writing. But it is a nod to how a poet's work can often be blurred by the life and subjectivity of the reader. Read this collection of poems if for nothing else but the poem below. It will make you think twice about how the world impacts the children of those who are famous-for whatever reason. It also made me grieve for the loss Frieda endured, and the agony that can come from the interpretation of readers who think they knew her mother. Readers by Frieda Hughes Wanting to breathe life into their own dead babies They took her dreams, collected words from one Who did their suffering for them. They fingered through her mental underwear With every piece she wrote. Wanting her naked. Wanting to know what made her. Then tried to feather up the bird again. The vulture with its bloody head Inside its own belly, Sucking up its own juice, Working out its own shape, Its own reason, Its own death. While their mothers lay in quiet graves Squared out by those green cut pebbles And flowers in a jam jar, they dug mine up. Right down to the shells I scattered on her coffin. They turned her over like meat on coals To find the secrets of her withered thighs And shrunken breasts. They scooped out her eyes to see how she saw, And bit away her tongue in tiny mouthfuls To speak with her voice. But each one tasted separate flesh, Ate a different organ, Touched other skin. Insisted on being the one Who knew best, Who had the right recipe. When she came out of the oven They had gutted, peeled And garnished her. They called her theirs. All this time I had thought She belonged to me most. published November 8th 1997 in The Guardian