Invited to the Feast

“Do nothurry your journey,” the poet says midway through this stunning collection. “Betterif it lasts for years, so you arrive / laden with all you’ve lost along theway.” Bonnie Naradzay’s journey—as mother, professional, teacher, and longtimevolunteer, leading poetry sessions in prisons, a retirement community, andamong the homeless—has gathered much of both the lost and found, culminating inthe publication of Invited to the Feast, a collection of poems andliterary debut coming in her eightieth year.With wisdomgleaned over time and craft honed over decades, Naradzay presents us with poemsthat range from dank encampments under city bridges to windswept Irish cliffsand Venetian vistas, finding a common human thread in street talk and theclassic tropes of our shared literary heritage.Invited tothe Feast is dividedinto three sections, each beginning with an epigraph that serves as a guide toreading each part. The poems collected here immerse the reader in theexperience of interactive poetry classes, laments for mentors and familymembers who have gone, and far-flung travels. Free verse consorts with adiversity of forms, including the villanelle, ghazal, pantoum, and sestina. Throughoutthis collection we sense that, despite loss and brokenness, love is stillpossible, and every one of us has been invited to this feast. Read more