The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

Roula-Maria Dib's Simply Being, Review by Joan Leotta

6/6/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Click on image to view or purchase this book on Amazon.

Roula-Maria Dib's Simply Being, Review by Joan Leotta

Roula-Maria Dib, a teacher of English literature, Jungian scholar, magazine (Indelibile) editor, wife, and mother, presents us with a collection of poems that dance on intellectual heights of religious, mythical, and philosophical imagery while remaining grounded in the simplicity of everyday life. These are words for a journey of soul and mind.

The introduction to the book by Omar Sabbagh, one of Dib’s mentors, says, among other things, “There is a theme in this collection, running through it with evident urgency, which is about  the way in which creation and creativity can be caught in the process of their ‘simply being.’”

Dib divides the book in to three approaches to this theme. She begins with ekphrastic poetry, the art of writing to the meaning of a painting. Her first in this series is a Jackson Pollock. Her poem, "Number I," finds order in the chaos of the drips and bits of colour in the Pollock work. Her ability to carve out theme-related meaning in several other paintings follows. Her poetry reaches into the soul of paintings while offering life sustaining images that cause us not only to ponder the painting more deeply, but also to examine in our own lives the cascade of feelings, thought, and emotion provoked by both the painting and her words.

Part II opens with "Ludus" or “a Thousand Poems.” In this poem she muses, “a thousand lyrics you pen and sing to that tune of what I recognize to be my own voice.” In this section she deals with themes of faith, self, family through the lens of the great themes of literature, mythology, the science of order and chaos. One of my favourites in the book is in this section, "Hold My Hand," a poem that explores among other things, her relationship with her own young daughter and how holding the hand of her child fastens her to the present, “the gift of the moment I never want to leave.”

Part III takes us more deeply in the world of religious, faith-based, family, and mythological imagery. She begins the section with a poem called "Godmother" that traipses through the fields of cultural tradition and between the worlds of myth and reality. My favourite is "The Prodigal Daughter," where Dib turns the biblical tale of prodigal son to the distaff side imagining what is inside of the prodigal, “the outer face of the inner soul” and in the end gives us a touchstone meeting between mother and daughter that filled me with personal joy as well as with the satisfaction of having just read a wonderful, uplifting poem.

Dib’s artistry and her ability to draw on the Jungian philosophy of her education, stand on the bedrock of literature and myth, and fly with the insights of religion and personal experience provide a collection that can bring a reader to verbal ecstasy while discovering the very nature of what it means to discover one’s true self and remain grounded in it by “simply being.”

An outstanding book.

Joan Leotta

Simply Being: Roula-Maria Dib
​Chiron Publications (January 15, 2021)
ISBN-10 : 1630519251
ISBN-13 : 978-1630519254

Read our author interview with Roula-Maria Dib, here.

​
Joan Leotta is a writer and performer who loves art and often finds herself inspired by a work of art as well as what she sees and hears around her. She submits often to The Ekphrastic Review and has been a guest editor for one of the challenges.

Read some of Joan's work in The Ekphrastic Review here.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead