Labyrinth Dance
Wishes
Excerpt
“She was led to believe wishes came true, if she held the long end of the wishbone and believed hard enough. “
Small Glass Bowl
Excerpt
“Grandmother’s large kind hands hold
this bowl, that I beg to lick,
as she mixes sometimes
Easter pink, or St Pat’s green, or plain white
powdered sugar and butter icing.
Its smallness holds tangy yellow deviled egg filling,
cornstarch to thicken her famous Sunday gravies,
banana slices suspended in raspberry Jell-O. “
Waiting for the Bus
Excerpt
“Suddenly, there’s a tap on my shoulder. I stiffen.
“Where’re you going?”
asks the jagged, gap-toothed blind man.
“Actually, my grandmother is leaving,” I say,
turning away. “I make mops; I’m here visiting my brother
for the weekend.”
I smell body odor and bad breath.
He pokes my shoulder again,
smiles, questions loudly,
“Where do you live?”
“What’s your name and phone number?”
I reply vaguely.
He smiles, taps his way to the men’s room.
I look around for two other seats together.
Grandmother clucks her tongue,
shakes her head,
“Be careful, don’t get involved,” she warns. “
Testimonials
“Labyrinth Dance is a non-whimpering reflection on pleasure, pain and family, a
wonderful imaginative celebration through the poetry of Catherine Rickbone… She handles sensuality with grace and passion… The collection… is real, visionary and poignant and deserves an honored place on the bookshelf of any interested reader of fine poetry.”John Baker
“The labyrinth that Catherine Rickbone dances in is a maze of memory and
mirrors leading to ‘the center of Self/familiar, yet new.’ The reader who goes along with her will most certainly be moved.”
Marianne Klekacz
In an impressive, lyrical first book, Catherine Rickbone’s Labyrinth Dance grapples
with issues of family and close connection. Rickbone meditates on the inner beauty of her family members and draws striking, measured, beautiful intimate portraits. But her book’s subject does not stop there. Rickbone reveals the beauty under the surface in everyday encounters with strangers and the unknown, such as in “Waiting for the Bus,” where a blind man touches the poem’s speaker’s face, saying “She’s beautiful” to the crowd, getting at the magic of this collection:–its beauty, its immediacy, its closeness. This collection reveals the beauty in everyday lives.
Dr. Kevin Rabas
Poet Laureate of Kansas, 2017-2019, winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry, More Than WordsOregon Poet Laureate Emerita
What She Knows
In What She Knows, Catherine Rickbone collects five sections of poems that chronicle a “…family tree of regrets and/ recriminations.” Although they recount difficult, daunting experiences, Rickbone’s poems call on wisdom and wit to offer readers their “…moments of salvation.”
Paulann Petersen
Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita