I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.  All opinions are my own.

TRIGGER WARNING: THEMES AND FIGURES REVOLVING AROUND UNALIVING AND SELF-HARM INCLUDED IN THIS BOOK. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Author and poet LindaAnn LoSchiavo shares a powerful, moving collection of poems about figures whose lives ended far too soon in “Past Tense.”

THE SYNOPSIS

An obituary ends the story. These poems refuse to.

Past Tense: Portraits and Poems on Suicides gathers twenty-three lives, spanning more than a century, from 1902 to 2022 – some world-famous, some known only to the few who loved them. Virginia Woolf, Kate Spade, Aaron Swartz, Jim Morrison, and Diane Arbus appear alongside figures far less documented: two Saudi refugees afraid to return home, a physician who preyed on his patients, a hacktivist facing decades in prison, the poet’s cousin.

Each poem is written in a form chosen to match its subject – not decoration, but architecture. A cento built from Vachel Lindsay’s own lines. An erasure that lets Virginia Woolf’s farewell letter point toward a second, hidden meaning. A poem composed in computer code for a programmer. A dynamic range of forms – arrow-shot elixirs in words – explores the shock of suicide and reflects the elusive nature of mental illness, sometimes by borrowing confessions from the very lives the collection honors.

Most poems step inside the final moment itself, holding distance at bay, resisting summary. A handful do something else instead – they hold their subjects to account rather than mourning them, unwilling to let judgment stay silent. The collection does not ask readers to grieve uniformly. Some of these deaths were tragedies. Some were the last act of someone who had already caused irreparable harm to others. Past Tense holds both truths without flattening either one.

The book resists tidy categories on purpose. Some subjects took their own lives in despair; one, a Buddhist monk, in protest. Some left notes that are now part of the public record; others left almost nothing behind at all. The poems do not explain why. They inhabit the moment closest to the unknowable and let form do what argument cannot.

Written across a wide range of poetic structures – several rarely seen together in a single collection – Past Tense is as much a demonstration of what poetic form can hold as it is a meditation on memory, judgment, and the stories we tell after someone is gone.

A discussion guide is available for book clubs, classrooms, and reading groups exploring the collection’s historical range and its questions about how – and whether – we get to judge the dead.

THE REVIEW

I have always found this poet and author’s work emotionally gripping and heartfelt, and this chapbook is no different. Diving headfirst into a difficult and heartbreaking way of losing a loved one, the author balances each poem surrounding a particular figure, both well-known and unknown, with biographical background and personal insight into the mindset of those figures.

What made this collection unique was how the author used different poetic styles to delve into each person’s frame of mind in those final days. From Fibonacci to erasure, and much more, the author also uses creative styles to bring these poems to life, such as presenting one poem as computer code to match a figure connected to that industry. Yet with all that creativity, the author never loses sight of the impact this subject matter has on both those who lost their lives and those he left behind. Written with purpose and compassion, the author highlights these emotional struggles. This subject matter is presented with honesty and an introspective perspective that readers will appreciate and become invested in.

THE VERDICT

Compelling, emotionally gripping, and moving, “PAST TENSE” BY LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a must-read collection of poems with a powerful theme that speaks to both mental health and emotional struggle. The unique life the author breathes into specific poem styles, and the heartfelt impact each poem has on the reader, will linger in the reader’s mind and keep them invested in this amazing poet’s other works. If you haven’t yet, please be sure to pre-order your copy today!

Rating: 10/10

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A native New Yorker, LoSchiavo has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Rhysling Award, Best of the Net, the IPPY Award, CLMP’s Firecracker Award, Balcones Poetry Prize, and Dwarf Stars. She is a member of Science Fiction Poetry Assoc., The British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild.

Her poetry chapbooks include “Conflicted Excitement” [Red Wolf Editions, 2018], “Concupiscent Consumption” [Red Ferret Press, 2020], “Women Who Were Warned” [Cerasus Poetry, May 2022], and “Messengers of the Macabre” co-authored with David Davies [Audience Askew, October 2022].

Her full-length collections include Elgin Award winner “A Route Obscure and Lonely” [Wapshott Press, Dec. 2019] and “Apprenticed to the Night” [UniVerse Press, 2023].

Three of her short stories appear in “A Feast of Narrative,” Vol. 1 [Idea Press, 2020], edited by Tiziano Dossena.

https://greenwichvillagepoet.substack.com/p/meet-lindaann-loschiavo