Tipton Poetry Journal – Winter 2022
Review: My Body the Guitar by Karla Linn Merrifield Reviewed by Barry Harris
Title: My Body the Guitar Author: Karla Linn Merrifield Year: 2021 Publisher: Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications
Once upon a time, when Karla Linn Merrifield was ten years old, a guitar came into her life. But it belonged to her 15 year-old brother. He was a natural guitarist while she describes herself as “shackled to the old upright piano in the basement.” Fifty years later, she began writing this book and decided she should learn how to play the guitar to better understand the mastery of the guitar gods who now populate the subjects of the third and final section of My Body the Guitar. So, she bought a Martin 000GT16. My Body the Guitar is arranged, as if itself a triptych, in three sections. The first section, titled Mere Mortal, describes, documents, and celebrates the poet’s struggle (or obsession) with learning to play guitar — from building finger callouses, through learning chords and tabulature and growing into a full-blown love affair with her guitars. The next section, Local Heroes, explores poetically those memories and stories of a life accompanied mostly by music. In the third section, Mighty Gods, Merrifield reveals to us her take on the mighty guitar gods of our time — now that she has travelled her own guitar journey to approach their heights.
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