A Kind of Osmosis
Dinah Berland, Hotel at the End of the World
Finishing Line Press, 34pp, $14.99, ISBN 9781646626595
reviewed by Nina Hanz
‘Some said they moved,’ writes Dinah Berland in her poem ‘Sephirot’, ‘because Lake Michigan resembled the Black Sea.’ Reading the poems in Hotel at the End of the World feels like stepping into the clarity of a swimming pool. Various poetic forms such as the sestina, sonnet and the Arabic ghazal drift with lyrical beauty as they archive moments in Berland’s life and by extension, those of her ancestors. Bridging the living world with the dead, her poems write into existence family histories intersecting with larger events like the Jewish diaspora and the smaller, more personal moment. In the sestina ‘Sephirot’, Berland archives her memories of her grandfather and what he taught her about their shared heritage by looking at the language they almost lost:
The very form of the poem, an economic French form requiring the repetition of six key words, focuses on the power and experience one word can contain. In discussion with the Hebrew script, we are reminded of the power of writing, recording, singing and speaking — and how many voices we can echo with it. This is beautifully acknowledged in the poem which became the collection’s title, ‘I’m on a double-helix rollback toward my ancestors, / An unfurled scroll reaching back.’
Hotel at the End of the World is part of Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices Series, which is a growing chapbook competition for writers who identify as women and have not yet published a full-length collection. This follows her first chapbook, Fugue for a New Life (2020), which was the 2019 winner of the WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest and other awards and fellowships.
Berland’s writing shifts between geographical and temporal space with great ease. Floating like memories, her work has a remarkable resonance that lingers within you through a kind of literary osmosis. Describing things like pandemic dog walks, the poems triumph with sincerity and honesty. It is a book that feels dedicated to family, not only for her ancestors, but the loved ones she herself has played a part in creating and teaching. The thread of — not quite emptiness, but an awareness of it — sits heavily among these poems. Like the stories of her Jewish ancestors so familiar with migration, she too must witness those around her move. In ‘Reflections’, which is written for her son Adam, she writes,
Berland is at the airport, saying goodbye to her son as time compresses into a manifold of farewells. The poems have an intrinsic wisdom to them, a knowing, a trust in the fact that life remains generationally in flux. ‘[A]nd letting go, you carry my reflection / in your eyes back to the Great Lakes.’ As he steps towards his airplane to fly away, we also understand it as a reflection of past generations' goodbyes, but also how this must continue with the next generation. It is as perpetual as condensation. Written for her daughter, ‘From the 22nd Floor’ likewise carries Berland’s description of the relationship between air and water as a self-actualising metaphor of her family. The poem depicts her daughter’s treacherous climb until the final lines where reunion is met with the lightness of acceptance. ‘Her hand clamps down and we are wound / into a chain, a sheet that will not tear / Easy now, I pull her in—She is made of air’. For everything that is unspoken, the words seem to mark them as they glide past.
While the themes discussed are heavy with the stories we collect in our lifetime, the product of Dinah Berland’s writing is crafted in a way that reaches beyond the weight of our living world, thereby releasing it of some of our metaphysical sorrow. These moments instead are written with the self-affirming comfort of retrospect. While there is much loss and grief, these poems also hold a sense of magic found within their memories. Like in ‘Wild Bird Elegy’, which she writes to and in memory of Brigit Pegeen Kelly. Berland’s new puppy has made ‘jagged gashes / through your impeccably crafted lines. . . as if to say, This is what you need to read!’ Then she writes, ‘She couldn’t know you had left us / only weeks before’. It is a powerful moment. It is the magic of connecting with one’s ancestors, of finding a dear friend, of finding a good book. A broad timeline of Berland’s life is covered in these pages, but I find myself drawn to the idea of Berland swimming through each poem like one would the hotel pools on a long, cross-country road trip. The writing is done with ease, but still each stroke is labour. Deeply informed by ancient mythologies, religions, and antiquity, her writing is like osmosis, is way of absorbing small bits of life.
‘. . . Some letters
have no sound. They moved like air, like fire, like water, with letters
that spelled the unspeakable name of God in numbers:
Grandpa Isaac, his wife Paula, and their daughter from Odessa.’
The very form of the poem, an economic French form requiring the repetition of six key words, focuses on the power and experience one word can contain. In discussion with the Hebrew script, we are reminded of the power of writing, recording, singing and speaking — and how many voices we can echo with it. This is beautifully acknowledged in the poem which became the collection’s title, ‘I’m on a double-helix rollback toward my ancestors, / An unfurled scroll reaching back.’
Hotel at the End of the World is part of Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices Series, which is a growing chapbook competition for writers who identify as women and have not yet published a full-length collection. This follows her first chapbook, Fugue for a New Life (2020), which was the 2019 winner of the WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest and other awards and fellowships.
Berland’s writing shifts between geographical and temporal space with great ease. Floating like memories, her work has a remarkable resonance that lingers within you through a kind of literary osmosis. Describing things like pandemic dog walks, the poems triumph with sincerity and honesty. It is a book that feels dedicated to family, not only for her ancestors, but the loved ones she herself has played a part in creating and teaching. The thread of — not quite emptiness, but an awareness of it — sits heavily among these poems. Like the stories of her Jewish ancestors so familiar with migration, she too must witness those around her move. In ‘Reflections’, which is written for her son Adam, she writes,
‘. . .You were born that way,
waving, about to embark into a world of air,
for I could no longer carry you in water—
waving good-bye and hello at once.’
Berland is at the airport, saying goodbye to her son as time compresses into a manifold of farewells. The poems have an intrinsic wisdom to them, a knowing, a trust in the fact that life remains generationally in flux. ‘[A]nd letting go, you carry my reflection / in your eyes back to the Great Lakes.’ As he steps towards his airplane to fly away, we also understand it as a reflection of past generations' goodbyes, but also how this must continue with the next generation. It is as perpetual as condensation. Written for her daughter, ‘From the 22nd Floor’ likewise carries Berland’s description of the relationship between air and water as a self-actualising metaphor of her family. The poem depicts her daughter’s treacherous climb until the final lines where reunion is met with the lightness of acceptance. ‘Her hand clamps down and we are wound / into a chain, a sheet that will not tear / Easy now, I pull her in—She is made of air’. For everything that is unspoken, the words seem to mark them as they glide past.
While the themes discussed are heavy with the stories we collect in our lifetime, the product of Dinah Berland’s writing is crafted in a way that reaches beyond the weight of our living world, thereby releasing it of some of our metaphysical sorrow. These moments instead are written with the self-affirming comfort of retrospect. While there is much loss and grief, these poems also hold a sense of magic found within their memories. Like in ‘Wild Bird Elegy’, which she writes to and in memory of Brigit Pegeen Kelly. Berland’s new puppy has made ‘jagged gashes / through your impeccably crafted lines. . . as if to say, This is what you need to read!’ Then she writes, ‘She couldn’t know you had left us / only weeks before’. It is a powerful moment. It is the magic of connecting with one’s ancestors, of finding a dear friend, of finding a good book. A broad timeline of Berland’s life is covered in these pages, but I find myself drawn to the idea of Berland swimming through each poem like one would the hotel pools on a long, cross-country road trip. The writing is done with ease, but still each stroke is labour. Deeply informed by ancient mythologies, religions, and antiquity, her writing is like osmosis, is way of absorbing small bits of life.