The Hatchet Buddha by Rebecca Gayle Howell

BOOK REVIEW; Howell's poems freeing body, spirit
Frederick Smock Special to The Courier-Journal
344 words
21 June 2008
The Courier-Journal Louisville, KY
METRO
11
English
(c) Copyright 2008, The Courier-Journal. All Rights Reserved.

'Hatchet Buddha' is enlightening

By Frederick Smock

Special to The Courier-Journal

The Buddha, you will recall, sought a release from human suffering. The Hatchet Buddha — represented as a female, holding a cleaver in one hand, her sex in the other — sought a release from the suffering occasioned by love. Her quest was not exclusively an ancient one.

Poet Rebecca Howell passes this figure of the Hatchet Buddha through several historical incarnations: the sometime-wife of the Hindu god Ganesha; the wife of Jonah; Joan of Arc; and, among others, the poet herself?

The women in these poems are visited by "wrathful deities" who appear as lovers (dangerous men always appear as lovers, don't they?) and who promise to combine metaphysical teachings with their ardor. But beware:

Angels are made to deliver

So when they go, a girl is left

baited and waiting

These lovers all seek one or another means of subjugating the women they visit. An over-arching theme here, within these poems, is that of the female intellect working to assert some independence of body and spirit.

In the dark, we grope

When we grope, we grab

If this love must be a wrestling

one of us will be pinned to the ground

While informed by Buddhism, mythology and history, these poems nonetheless float above the philosophical scrum, upon a felicity of phrasing, and an irresistible lightness of being. It is a high "ground" that the poet chooses for her characters.

Rebecca Howell is an intelligent and insightful poet, whose work entertains even as it enlightens. Her poems are graced by exquisitely inventive drawings by Arwen Donahue.

All the principals here — poet, artist, publisher — are Kentuckians, adding to the state's already considerable literary mystique.

Frederick Smock is chairman of the English department at Bellarmine University. His forthcoming book is "Craft-talk: On Writing Poetry."

Book Review
The Hatchet Buddha
By Rebecca Gayle Howell
Illustrations by Arwen Donahue
Larkspur Press; 47 pp. ; $24