Weekly Reader: Rose: Future Heart by Jazalyn; Jazalyn's Best Poetry Book Takes a Floral Analogy Towards Introversion, Solitude, Loneliness, Pain, and Search for Love
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: Well we had a Science Fiction book of poetry that was heavy on plot. Then it was followed by a poetic ghost story that was rich in character. How does Jazalyn choose to end this trilogy and save the best for last? By giving us an allegory that is the strongest on an emotional lyrical level of course.
Rose: Future Heart is an evocative and lyrical story of a rose who is trying to survive in a world of physical and emotional abuse. While VVIIRRUUSS had the strongest plot and Hollow the strongest characterization, Rose has the most poetic sense of lyric, metaphor, and allegory.
In "Rise Rose Risen," the Rose recalls the many forms in which it took in the past,"Past rose/In bad memories/Hate rose/In bad feelings/Future rose/From good moments/Love rose/From good emotions/Evil has risen/And will do it again/Good has risen/And will do it again."
This poem uses the word "rose" as a double meaning. Rose as in the flower but also as the verb. The poem talks about the rise in the past and future and so on. How these important times leave their marks, both good and bad.
The Rose describes itself as someone who had always been a bud. It became moral and closed its heart to become divine. In "Rose: Future Heart," it says "I passed through evil waves/The contamination/Of the field/Was so intense/That brought eternal darkness/Still the rose/Stood strong/And retained the youth/And as a result/For a future collision." The physical hardships have transformed the Rose though it remains strong through the trouble.
The physical hardships that the Rose ensures give it a defense against those who hurt it. In almost mythological overtones, the poem "Oxygen Thorns" reveals the literal and figurative thorns that develops on the Rose as a defense against the struggles. Jazalyn writes, "The thorns conspired/And tried to ruin the beauty/The rose had in plentifulness/Pushed away/Whoever tried to reach."
However, the thorns also provided something else: oxygen. It not only gave the Rose the ability to defend itself but to survive. The poem continues, "Then the rose raged/Took the thorns/And transformed them/Into leaves/Then spread oxygen." Ironically, that which makes the rose hard to touch also allows it to breathe and live.
The Rose is in search of love, real love not necessarily erotic love, but one of selflessness and spirituality. The repetitive poem, "I Was Crying (For) Love Until I Became a Whisper," is similar to the myth of Echo and Narcissus, in which Echo the nymph was cursed to only repeat the words another said. She could not declare her love for the handsome Narcissus as he stared at his own reflection, thinking that it was an unrequited love. Echo's form faded away until it became nothing more than a voice.
Likewise, the Rose cries out for love in a sad and lonely world until no one hears it. The repetition of the poem in which the Rose laments "I cried love…/I cried pain…/I cried life…/Until I became a whisper" suggests that it is tired of crying out and wants to be heard.
However, at the end there is a peculiar break where the final two lines say "Until I became a whisper/Until…." And it just stopped. Possibly, the Rose is no longer heard but it is also just as possible that someone had heard it. Maybe finally, someone understood the cries and now their crying can temporarily cease.
It becomes apparent that the Rose stands as a metaphor for the lonely, the loveless, those that seem to be surrounded by love but feel none for themselves. Beautiful souls that built thorns of defense but still cry out to be heard. The book Rose: Future Heart is an allegory about the search for love in a sometimes uncaring and love obsessed world.
When we are surrounded by scenes of love, we become confused by the view of love bestowed by others particularly through popular culture.
"Entertainment Made Me Love Like That," shows the Rose (I will continue to refer to the speaker as the Rose) recounted the constant repetition of love in songs and movies and how they obtained and unreasonable assumptions of love. The poem says, "I would probably never have developed emotions/If I wasn't exposed to music's lyrics/To cinema's romantic scenes." The Rose is surrounded by fictional images of love and believes that is how life should be in real life.
Along with the worries of love, the Rose wonders about insanity, whether the signs of loneliness are also signs of depression and mental illness. "The Signs (Earlization)" portrays that worry, if someone recognizes the signs of mental illness and wonders if that's why they prefer to be alone.
The poem says "I'm trying to see/And connect/The correct/Thoughts/And I succeed/But still/I'm afraid I'll do/A wrong move/I'm confused/Inside my mind/I need an information input/Through natural sound/I need to hear/The right words/In the right order/I need eaRlization." The Rose is confused and needs to know whether its thoughts are normal or lead to other problems. If it is unwell, could that be why love is hard to reach?
The Rose has to face the deepest emotions, love and hate. Sometimes those emotions are so intense that they work together. In, "Love Took Me to Hate" it thinks, "Love took me to hate/And I gained much/But I also lost touch/With myself/Love took me to hate/And I started living/Then I realized/It was a temporary path/That I should pass by."
In being introduced to love, the Rose was also introduced to hate. However, it also realizes that hate could be a temporary step towards understanding love.
Sometimes there are benefits to living a solitary life. Many are content to be alone with their thoughts. Though Rose still wants to experience love, it also sees some advantages to being alone.
In "This Silence, The Rose describes themselves as "I'm good, kind, and nice/With everyone/But I stay away/From friendships/And relationships/Because I don't have time/To lose/With people who won't appreciate it."
The silence allows the Rose to think and reflect, to stay away from the faithless and decide what they really want in love.
Searching for love sometimes involves plenty of bad dates, going through those who are not always worth going out with. In "Self-Partnered," the Rose goes out with someone who identifies as "self-
partnered," (single). Unfortunately, self-partnering does not mean that they aren't with others. After the lover is caught cheating, the Rose admonishes "But it seems/You're a lie/And you broke our secret oath/Cause you have changed/So many lovers all this time/Or not?/What are all these things/Perhaps they are fake scenes/Like many other things/But don't at least don't say/'I'm self-partnered/When you intend to have partners/Damaged your image/At least in my eyes." Ironically, the Rose isn't as upset about the lover's mistreatment as it is angry that the lover can't be honest with themselves.
In the poem, "Im-Possible Dream", the Rose acknowledges that it lives in a hard world of sadness, want, faithlessness, anger, and rage but it isn't going to stop dreaming of a better world. With a gift for changing words, Jazalyn rewrites impossible into something else. One remembering its dreams, the Rose says "Others may call it crazy/And I thought I was a megalomaniac/But deep down inside/I know that I belonged/In this impossible dream/And now I shout out loud/"I'm possible dream." Changing the words from impossible to I'm possible changes Rose's thought patterns. Its dreams are no longer far away and remote. Instead, they are approachable.
Because of the search for love, the Rose has changed. Its appearance brings it beauty, but the thorns are painful, almost beastly. So naturally, Jazalyn would create a mythological allegory between the protagonist and the fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. However, this variation is different. While the plot of the fairy tale hinges on the Beast changing their form, the Rose accepts both aspects of itself.
In "Beauty in the Beast," the Rose says "I had the beauty/Of being normal/But then I encountered/Society's injustices/And I went out of my head/I'm not a beast/I'm more moral than anyone/And if I had the right conditions in my life/I could find myself again." The injustices that the Rose encountered has forced it to bring forward a side to itself that it didn't want, a tougher stronger side that is still moral but sees the world and love as it really is: painful, beautiful, hard, warm, both good and bad.
After all the searching, the Rose does find love. It had to go through the hurt and pain before it could experience and feel love. It discovers that real love is something that makes you look at the world and yourself differently.
In "Love Does That," the Rose reflects "Feelings make you feel beautifully/And they make you feel like you're beautiful/No matter how you look to others/You believe you are likable/….You see the world brighter/You are happier/You want to be better/To gain mutuality." The Rose now understands that loving others is also the key to loving oneself.
The extended metaphors and deep emotion provide allegory to the fantasy of a rose learning to recognize her inner beauty and character. Anyone can understand this journey, because we have all been there.
