Invited to the Feast

“Do not

hurry your journey,” the poet says midway through this stunning collection. “Better

if it lasts for years, so you arrive / laden with all you’ve lost along the

way.” Bonnie Naradzay’s journey—as mother, professional, teacher, and longtime

volunteer, leading poetry sessions in prisons, a retirement community, and

among the homeless—has gathered much of both the lost and found, culminating in

the publication of Invited to the Feast, a collection of poems and

literary debut coming in her eightieth year.

With wisdom

gleaned over time and craft honed over decades, Naradzay presents us with poems

that range from dank encampments under city bridges to windswept Irish cliffs

and Venetian vistas, finding a common human thread in street talk and the

classic tropes of our shared literary heritage.

Invited to

the Feast is divided

into three sections, each beginning with an epigraph that serves as a guide to

reading each part. The poems collected here immerse the reader in the

experience of interactive poetry classes, laments for mentors and family

members who have gone, and far-flung travels. Free verse consorts with a

diversity of forms, including the villanelle, ghazal, pantoum, and sestina.

Throughout

this collection we sense that, despite loss and brokenness, love is still

possible, and every one of us has been invited to this feast.