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

 

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.

Weekly Reader: VVIIRRUUSS by Jazzalyn; Poetic Science Fiction Meditations on Technology, Memories, Emotions, and What it Means to be Human

 

Weekly Reader: VVIIRRUUSS by Jazalyn; Poetic Science Fiction Meditations on Technology, Memories, Emotions, and What it Means to be Human

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Last year I read Mazarine Dreamer by Francessca Bella, a fantasy novel about time travel told in poetry. Jazalyn is another poet/author that does the same tactics. She writes speculative fiction in the form of a series of poems. However, their approaches couldn't be more different. Bella is more interested in telling a story, capturing a narrative with rhyming couplets. It is an imaginative and creative way of writing a narrative story and Bella captures it beautifully.

Jazalyn also tells a story but is more interested in the internal. The books of poetry have a plot that surrounds the books. But the poems capture the emotions, the thoughts of characters captured in these stories. They are more lyrical and thoughtful and not as driven by plot. Instead, they are driven by emotions of the people that experience the plot.

Three of Jazalyn's books of poetry will be reviewed. Of the three, VVIIRRUUSS is probably the most plot heavy. In the future, viruses will spread and have the power to change humanity. 

The helplessness and lack of knowledge to defeat the first virus is felt in the first poem, "Quantum Waves". 

Jazalyn writes, "A pattern/Of respiration/Occurs from the language processing/But they all think/It's the sound waves/That enter the ears/From the cellphones." The virus comes so fast that no one recognizes or knows how to stop it.

The real curse from the first virus, Virus 0.1 is the madness that it brings by exposing thoughts and memories to public consciousness inducing madness within the individuals. In the poem, "Virus 0.1" the cost is revealed, "The lies/Caused by hate and madness/In a prospect of death/And the departure/Was the only rescue/In this world." 

This experience is felt by one of the characters who lives in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety. However, the Speaker knows that there is something wrong with the system in which they live that is worse than any virus. 

In the poem "Virus Code" they think "The paradigm shift/Let me into this simulation/Because I hate my life/And I want to change it/But a behavior change/Demands to alter the DNA/After a search of self/Inside obstacles/I didn't believe it/But anyway it's no one's fault/We are machines/With free will/To live & love/And now there is only/A total eclipse of pain."

There are few possibilities to the identity of the Speaker in "Virus Code". It could be a personification of the Code itself filled with anxiety over what it is being used to do to combat the virus. It is aware that it is a machine and is therefore sentient and is in fear of what it will become when it encounters the virus.

The other possibility is that the Speaker is a human who has the virus. However, what many see as madness may be seeing the truth for the first time. That the Speaker may realize that they are a machine in a system in which they can be changed and reprogrammed.

The thought of being reprogrammed is what is recounted in the next virus and the poem, "VVIIRRUUSS." To combat the virus, the authorities created a counter virus. Unfortunately, the two combined to form an even worse virus. 

The second was supposed to help the public forget the memories that were out in the open. However, the VVIIRRUUSS appears to restore the private memories, but appears to destroy the soul. 

Jazalyn writes,"Everything happens for a reason/Everyone says/Trying to make sense/Of what occurs in their life/And in reality/But in fact/The truth is that/Everything happens for another reason/Nature is altering the DNA/To reduce passions/Now that the environment needs a new future." 

It shows that in trying to fix a problem, society often creates new problems. Also that the system tried to alter the DNA to install their form of perfection. The trouble is eventually nature evolves and will alter the DNA on its own.

Many of the poems are filled with the paranoia, fear, anxiety of a world surrounded by these viruses. Violence breaks out and close ties are broken by the stress of these viruses. 

In the poem, "Apocalypse Revolution," everyone sees the truth around them and realizes what a valuable commodity it is. "Truth is embarrassing/Truth's not reality/Truth's a strategy;/They silence it with money/They hide it with guns/And they pass what they want to pass." Unfortunately, the truth can be covered up and changed by laws and regulations. Just like the viruses in the book, it has been reprogrammed by humans into something else. Hiding or disguising the truth only makes it worse.

There are plenty of poems in this book that discuss deeper emotions like love, anger, and sadness. In a couple of poems, the Speaker compares themselves to the Joker as played by Joaquin Phoenix in the 2019 film. While the Joker displays psychopathic tendencies, the Speaker understands that the character lives in a society that doesn't understand him.

In the bluntly titled, "I Sympathize with This Joker," The Speaker recognizes their own need to make themselves be heard but also to not resort to Arthur Fleck/The Joker's violent tactics. "I hate criminal acts/I want peace/But I worry/That all humanity is to blame/For the rise of evil/So we must understand/That we're all responsible for it."

 In this world of viruses where human experiences are being muted, it is important for someone to recognize human flaws, frailties, and emotions knowing that what makes people outsiders make them the most human and honest. It also reveals that sometimes a person that society perceives as crazy might actually be able to see and understand the truth and call society to face it with all of its ugliness and honesty.

Of the most important human experiences is the ability to love and to be loved in return. The Speaker in "To Be Well," has this desire. After being put through the system and even being institutionalized The Speaker still longs to feel a human connection. "I don't ask/For anything irrational/And I'm not a criminal;/I know I deserve it/To be with someone/Who really loves me/Not necessarily romantically."

 It is a somewhat cynical plea as the Speaker has been through so much physical, emotional, and psychological torment that they can't imagine love being near them. They wonder if love has the power to help them out of this loneliness society has bestowed upon them. Still they hope and that is what keeps them alive.

Besides emotions, what makes us human are our memories, our real memories, our past even if we can't always remember the exact details (like those with Alzheimer's or amnesia They don't always remember the people or events around them but know that they are close to people and are loved). To know and feel those connections with others.

The poem, "The Memories Are The Only Justice," reveals that recognizing those human traits are the true victories and The best way to combat the viruses in this story and the society that tries to expose us in fiction and reality. 

Jazalyn writes, "When the truth/Becomes fear/It's altered/But reveal/The memories/Of light/And you'll be free/Now that the memories are out/Keep them there/Forever;/It's the only justice/In this corrupted earth."

When things that make us human like thought and emotions can be changed, reprogrammed, and put out to the public to be scrutinized and judged, it is important to recognize those traits.

The poems reflect the importance of memories and holding onto emotions like love and loss in a time when humanity is being quantified and measured. To do that is to truly be human.