Writing Naked illuminates a life like a series of lightning flashes, allowing us glimpsesranging over seven decades and six generations, from "sepia-toned" great-grandmothersto a vivid little grandson. The opening poem, "It's Time," with its "Hey, I'm onlyseventy-five" and "I always do better with deadlines," sets the tone for a collectionalways imbued with wit and joy, considering the sacred in the day-to-day, the humorousin the tragic, the profound in simple clothing. This collection touches on personalexperiences with feisty kindness and startling drollery. Even the poems of bereavementand loss are run through by a current of celebration and homage of the particular personsand through them to life itself. Those dedicated to her father and to the husband who was"the one" of her life are particularly strong and poignant. The title poem shows us the Iof this book, writing, sitting naked on a blanket, in full sunshine under a sky of Canalettoblue, "hiding nothing," as the poems themselves seem to do. Writing Naked is ColeenMarks' début collection and, yes, it's time.Enriqueta Carrington, Translator of Treasury of Mexican Love Poems, Quotations & Proverbs In Writing Naked, Coleen Marks gives us personal poems with a wider resonance: childhood and coming of age in a large, working class Irish-American family, then anadult life of love, work, relationships, and growing older in a long and close marriage.She is an engaging story-teller--in fact the word "stories" crops up as a motif throughoutthe book, as she observes "stories...on the see saw between too simple and too complex."She writes about day jobs and earning a living (not often the subject of poetry), as well asher developing feminist consciousness in a male-dominated social milieu. These firstpersonpoems tell of loved ones and strangers, hardship and play, art and ardor, capturedwith a down-to-earth thoughtfulness that evokes emotions from carefree ("A Room with aView") to deeply touching ("Sgt. Gomez," "At Ninety-One"). Writing Naked conveys anopen-hearted yet clear-eyed optimism, and an ethical commitment to taking one's place inthe world.Maxine Susman Author of Gogama and Provincelands
