This review originally appeared at Green Man Review.
Anyone who has worked seriously with the Tarot comes to understand quite early on that the cards are starting points: as detailed and specific as the images may be, they are really signposts leading to where we need to go. Rachel Pollack understands that very well, as the poems in Fortune’s Lover demonstrate.
Call this collection a directed wander. It represents a vision that is, first and foremost, a unity, Eden and Manhattan, then and now, Fools and Magicians and Biblical scholars all part of the same continuum. The Fool becomes Pollack crossing 34th Street in Manhattan against traffic, rushing to grab a taxi to make her train, and somehow surviving, as Fools will. The Emperor sparks the beginnings of feminism in a disappointed daughter. Pi becomes a poem itself.
It’s not all the Tarot reflecting daily life. Merlin is here, with a ridiculous set of prophecies that, of course, come true (“Hanged Man”), while the Devil outwits Adam and Eve without trying very hard — no great task, as it turns out.
Pollack combines the traditions of Tarot with Jewish lore in ways that lead the arcane back to the straightforward, the complex to the blatantly simple (which, after all, is where it started): “Empress” pokes not-so-gentle fun at those who look too hard at things, building towering castles in the air that include the Sephiroth, Eden, the Source of All, when it all really boils down to, “Be nice to birds and have a good life.” (The irony comes later.)
Nor is Pollack blind to the resonances of her words. Poems such as “Lovers” and, even more, “Magician” (how fitting!) combine images and rhythms in ways that make them quite — well, magical. (I think “Magician” is probably my favorite of the group, although “Lovers” is hard on its heels; they’re both pretty amazing.) Images are rich, compelling, the language echoes in our minds, the path we follow through this collection is full of surprises, and the journey itself becomes the goal.
Fortune’s Lover is the second title under Midsummer Night’s Press’ “Fabula Rasa” imprint (the first was Lawrence Schimel’s Fairy Tales for Writers). With this release, the press is on the way to establishing a very high bar.
(A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2009)
Thanks for the review on “Fortune’s Lover” and thanks from myself & many others to Rachel for writing it. Still have my first ever tarot books…78 Degrees Of Wisdom (in two books)
This is where my interest in tarot research began & as mentioned in the review, in words that sum just so much of it up: “Be nice to birds and have a good life”