Book Review: Locked in Different Alphabets by Doris Fiszer Reviewed by Allan Briesmaster
Books of poetry that combine family history with autobiography have been appearing often enough in recent years to form a notable subgenre. Locked in Different Alphabets is an excellent instance of such “memoir poetry.” The poems speak with a distinctive voice (or ensemble of voices), beyond being merely generic. And rather than too closely following well-worn paths across all-too-familiar terrain, this book reveals its characters’ personalities and recounts their struggles and traumas in ways that bespeak their, and the poet’s, uniqueness. Three sections, each using somewhat different methodology, tell of the lives and deaths of the poet’s brother, father, and mother, also showing the indelible marks they left on the poet, for good or for ill: “trapped in the smell/ I will always associate/ with that day” and “my hands still shake/ when I strike a match.” But the impact reaches even further: “She is as near as the horned owl/ perched in the pine tree.” One by one, the three principal figures are foregrounded, while the other family members interact with them, both when present and
in memory. Most of the poems involve a single, decisively revealing incident or scene, usually fraught with conflict that is liable to scar. For the most part, the manner of presentation is stark, plain-spoken and free of embellishments that might soften a stanza’s delivery.
