Difficult Fruit

There is no such thing as a typical journey from girlhood to womanhood, but all have some commonalities, some moments to which women will relate. This collection of poems, small in size, carries great power and beauty and insightfulness within its covers. Not all of the memories in poems represented here are pretty or sweet, but all are honest and true. A memory of a childhood diabetic friend who dies far too young, and the magnitude of the funeral as seen through the eyes of a child, will leave the reader haunted. The simplicity of a snowstorm that becomes an internal tug-of-war is perfect for a woman of a certain age.

These poems are rife with dichotomies – passion and indifference, radiance and gloom, arrivals and departures. They examine life through music, religion, nostalgia, and sensation. But all work with an urgency to put their reflections out where they can be examined and grasped. The words carry much weight within their arrangements and much beauty in their cadence. Lauren K. Alleyne has stripped away the pretenses so often found in such collections and given readers the assignment to examine their own lives and find the essences of their souls.