Some Notes You Hold by Rita Sims Quillen

Lord help me!  Rita Quillen, who I still think of as that beautiful young woman with the voice of an angel, has written a book that deals with growing old. If she’s old, I must be ancient. O.K. I gotta settle down and write this lovely book up! It is divided into three sections: “Letting Go” deals with that most overwhelming aspect of aging: surviving deep grief. Then Rita provides us with a much appreciated musical interlude reminiscent of those occasions when she has graced her companions with her real life music   – called “Interlude: Selah.” The last part, brings us back to the theme of aging on a more positive note, “Holding On.” “Framed within the twin templates of scripture and domestic ritual, these poems pay loving homage to hard times and the resilience it takes to survive them. Quillen often employs a colloquial voice that perfectly fits these poems, poems that ring as brightly as the ‘big bell on the steeple’ of the family church, narrative poems animated by metaphors of mu