The Last Honesty

These profoundly personal poems, published in a posthumous work, push one out of the merely personal into the impersonal creative realm of artistry. They can be stark as she chronicles her losses and most painful moments, yet the poems never stray into the realm of the maudlin. These poems remind one of what the great poet, Philip Levin, called “a toothless kiss.” They provide little comfort but require the reader to confront life in all its suffering and struggle and staggering beauty with inordinate strength, resiliency, and, of course, humor. Chris was angry enough to put “God on Trial"— although her bitterness is tempered with a large dose of jocularity and acknowledged absurdity— and light-hearted and spirited enough to write, Who be the beeests upon the blossoms / that bee upon the apple tree? See thou what I mean / There upon the leaves? ("Beests") Finally, in the poem “The Lady Who Thought She Might Be Quoted,” Chris states with all the fierceness she mustered in her life, Here