Speaking a language we understand, Rona Shaffran's poems tell the story of remarkable things that can happen in a broken relationship. These poems inhabit the sharp edges and rich depths of a union too long untended. Ignite begins in wintry suburbia with a man and woman who have lost emotional and physical connection. A magic-realist plunge into the atavistic tropics of desire breaks this barren matrix. The exotic landscape sparks resurgent passion, which leads to a dramatic and healing turn-around for the couple. The poems of disappointment don't waste a word. The poems of arousal are sensual, succinct and poignant. The garden grows. The transformation is real.

Straightforward on the surface, yet taking us to deeper levels of understanding, the poems are unflinchingly honest. Individually, they startle, and evoke primal recognitions. When read in sequence, the poems of Ignite impel us to the story's conclusion. The man and woman come alive as their joy and sadness meld together. There is dignity in this progression, and the restraint that comes with dignity.

These are poems for readers and lovers in all their seasons, yet there is hard-won maturity to the lovers in Ignite. Everyday gestures transform into universal experiences, taking us to the heart of emotions and experiences of a lifetime's duration. The language, refined to bone-essential elements, almost disappears to create an intimacy with the reader, a collective energy, a human experience that we all share.

Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Rona Shaffran lives in Ottawa, Ontario. She recently retired as co-director of the Tree Reading Series, one of Canada’s longest running poetry venues, where she is also a member of the board of directors and organizes master poetry workshops. Rona Shaffran is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers and the Banff Centre Writing Studio. Her poems have appeared in Canadian literary journals, including Vallum, in an illustrated chapbook published and distributed in Canada and Australia, and in several collaborative chapbooks. She has won honourable mention for the John Newlove Poetry Award. Retired several years ago from federal government work, Rona has chaired the boards and committees of many non-profit organizations. She devotes time to writing and to travel, and is at work on a second manuscript that includes both poetry and prose. Ignite is her first published book of poetry.

Rona Shaffran's profile page

The linked poems in this collection present some of the most honest and true poetry I have read recently. Ignite opens with a sequence of poems bathed in mid-winter light. The heat in a relationship between a man and woman has gone cold, emotionally and sexually. Its dying embers are described clearly by the woman, especially in the first three poems of the book. While reading these lines, just for a moment, I thought I heard echoes of Sexton talking to Roethke. But the voice here is Shaffran's own, speaking the naked truth in the woman's voice, and then in the man's. This is daring, high-wire poetry that requires perfect balance between the female and male personas. This balance and credibility in a dialogue between two voices is difficult to achieve convincingly, yet in Shaffran’s hands, it appears to be easy -- it isn't. The second section of Ignite opens with an epigraph from "Life is Motion," a poem by Wallace Stevens devoted to "Celebrating the marriage / Of flesh and air." This section includes poems set on an island where there is a change, or transition, to a place where love and passion are re-awakened, as is evident in the poem, "Ignite." The third and final section of Ignite is the shortest and one of the strongest in this noteworthy collection of poems. The epigraphs in Ignite quote the mid-20th century poets Anne Sexton, Theodore Roethke, and Wallace Stevens. Sexton's work was deeply personal and sometimes troubled. Roethke's distinctive poetry, such as "In a Dark Time," was also troubled. And Stevens' was brilliant and often cool. The best of these influences and a number of others are apparent in the sometimes cool and hot bursts in Ignite.

Vallum