Handful of Stallions at Twilight by Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas

Carol Lynn Grellas’ book of poetry, “Handful of Stallions at Twilight,” revisits difficult memories about family, and the grief of missing loved ones. The titled poem finds Grellas at her father’s cemetery plot with heartfelt questions that go unanswered. “Was death so sweet a promise no daughter/could call you back?” Her lines are gentle yet strong in her search for truth. These poems are personal landscapes where words hope to make sense of life and loss on a journey of inquiries and illuminations.

–Lara Gularte, Poet Laureate Emeritus, El Dorado County, CA

In her new book “Handful of Stallions at Twilight,” Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas speaks eloquently of life and death. The opening poem tells us that she would like her death to be valued rather than mourned…like a whale carcass on the bottom of the ocean floor becoming food for other creatures. I think how when a poet dies, their words become food for those who still live. We meet members of her family with all their beauty and eccentricities in many of these poems. Once when asked if all her poems were about mother, the answer was yes, in one way or another. These poems speak of deep caring, even a pink house says prayers of love for the woman inside who cries. In the end she assures us that when her body no longer feels the rain she will still be with us like stars seen through an open window.

–Allegra Jostad Silberstein, Poet Laureate Emerita of Davis CA

“If I could have disappeared into another life, it would have been there.”(Save Our Souls) Carol Lynn Grellas’ latest collection, Handful of Stallions at Twilight, does the opposite of disappearance; these lush poems embody the complexity, contradiction, vulnerable and tender beauty of being alive. Grellas writes with a sage’s questions  and  child’s heart, lets the kite out as far as possible, and right before the string breaks (how does she know?)  she pulls the kite in, extends an invitation for coffee, and there on the table is Robert Bly (How to Fall in Love with Robert Bly). This collection addresses trauma, grief for our planet’s demise, how our children’s lives are filigreed on our own, how memory is our constant melody. We find laments and belly laughs (Regarding Your Submission), the grace of small encounters (In the Line at Starbucks) and how the capacity to be fully human depends on relatedness. (Handful of Stallions at Twilight.)

Here is when Grellas’ kite is flying high, “Surely my soul will wake and rise from its sunken bed in search of the Divine as it blooms in effervescence the way champagne bubbles sparkle and dance as they float to the rim of a crystal glass and then roll over the crest onto a thirsty and beautiful tongue.” (If My Death Could Be a Whalefall.)  Then the sharing coffee lines, “It’s not like you can take death with you.” (The Haunting)” “I was never meant to be your Jesus.” (Forgive Me.)” I am the bone that breaks when you tumble from a hollowed tree.” (Memo to My Children.)  Range, depth, and not just a child’s heart, but in her own words, her heart is “a bionic thing with a bright flare inside and not even the cruelest death in spring can stop its craving for light.” (Homage to this Heart.) Lucky us!

–Susan Flynn, author of Seeing Begins in the Dark