May I Have This Dance?
a book review
by T.L. Kelly

a woman of passage
anne mckay
Wind Chimes Press
P.0. Box 601
Glen Burnie, Maryland 21061

Renga partners share somewhat of an affinity with dance partners. It takes a few bruised toes and twisted ankles before you find dance partners that compliment your own style. As a renga writer, you must choose your partners carefully because you'll probably be "dancing" together, through the mail, for a year or more. And that's just for one song.

I don't know if anne mckay is a good dancer, but if her new book, a woman of passage, is any indication, she glides across the dance floor with sensual grace. She obviously loves "whole body" dancing, intuiting the subtle threads of human nature connecting flesh to bone.

mckay has chosen her partners well: L.A. Davidson, Hal Roth, Elizabeth Searle Lamb, Marlene Mountain, Jerry Kilbride, Francine Porad, Beth Jankola, Eileen Kernaghan and J. Michael Yates. Most are seasoned renga writers. All dance with ease; there are no ackward moves in this; mckay's sixth collection. The title renga is independent of partners, and appears at the end of the book. Most of the renga images are primarily from a woman's perspective--even the links by male partners are direct or subtle responses to female energy, as in these links from 'red on white snow':

and yet no resting for the dove no olive branch -- mckay

slight suggestion of groundswell in the bow's motion -- Kilbride

But mckay is rarely subtle in her use of images. She paints images with bold colors and textures, and with relatively few words connects the reader to an immediate sound, smell, taste and vision. This is so necessary and effective in modern renga, especially if it is to survive in the West. Meandering into surreal images or subtle symbolism is the corruptive force behind mainstream language poetry; in a renga, it not only displaces the genre but corrupts, absolutely. mckay and her partners rarely "meander" in this collection, largely due to mckay's ability to rescue a questionable sequence with a clear, sensual image, as in this excerpt between from 'wings of the snowgoose':

sirens on and on and on into the hot night -- mckay
distant through the heat haze holes connected by neurons -- yates
blissful sleep the sea beckoning again -- jankola
on that grey coast a sound of underwater bells -- kernaghan
history woven of wind by wind -- yates
the rhythm of her loom almost a mantra -- mckay

mckay's liberal use of primary colors in images serves to enhance her personal style. In her hokku for 'on the neap tide' with E.S. Lamb--"rhythms of a red shawled girl/gathering oysters/on the neap tide"--the image is immediately grounded by the red undulating shawl. As one contemplates the image, the red grows deeper, richer; and the act of 'gathering oysters" is enriched with a powerful sensuality.

By far, the best example of mckay's love of whole body dancing is her links with Marlene Mountain in 'our rights, our rites.' Mountain, too, is adept at immediate sensual imagery, but she goes one refreshing step further into blatant eroticism and uncompromising feminism. mckay, too, teases the boundaries in this powerful renga; together, these women have plowed through the wall of tradition to create a fresh path for women writing renga:

yes for years i said yes but i lied -- mckay
unable to help and now a microphone of paranoia in her mouth -- mountain
not ready to hear a woman sing until i've heard her scream -- mckay
shesnickering shecackling sheriotously sherasing the herasers ah -- mountain
shedding winter a woman of passage -- mckay
waits by the river waits for the message that green power -- mckay
no blood for 3 months now even more the crone -- mountain
the way of the dance the why of the dance forgotten -- mckay
in trusting myself another woman trusts herself -- mountain
and another and another and another into the otherland -- mckay
reckless restless affirmation of shebeing -- mountain

I had never read anne mckay or Marlene Mountain before this book. I have not been so powerfully moved by renga images since reading Jane Reichhold's 'Duet For One Mirror.' mckay; with her talent for trimming away the fat from a powerfully sensual image, and Mountain; with her no-nonsense approach to what ls female, are two dancers that can trip the light into flames. If only for 'our rights, our rites', which is certainly not the only hot renga in mckay's collection, don't sit out this dance. Renga never felt so good.