Poems Saved in Vintage Bottles, by Rubeena Anjum

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

The same old themes of life, love, and loss are revisited in this collection. Through vivid imagery, Rubeena Anjum leads readers along winding paths of meter and rhyme, illuminating the overt and subtle layers of day-to-day emotions. Each villanelle and sonnet is artfully composed, with words flowing effortlessly toward a collective yearning for fulfillment. So far, so good. I have nothing to say/What went wrong then—you want to argue now/Say what you feel, sigh, sob; smile seems okay. Love, with its dizzying highs and crushing lows, is portrayed using life’s imperfections as a frame of reference. to love, to lose, to let go, that one art/what life is, known in bits, in breaks, mistakes/ shed light—glass road appears, renewed, I start.

The tug and tangle, the glint of gain, a splash of color, the faint hints of chivalry—her verse lets the mind roam free in the impact of each refrain. It stirs the need to feel cherished, to curl up in wracking sobs, to muster the strength to move through pain. Why mirrors break, why roses drop, gains shrink/visions fade, why moons wan, why fears remain/ You dance with me, we sing and swirl, don’t think/Say cheers to dervish, raise your glass, and drink. To live in the moment is to read and feel each poem as it reaches out to the readers. Romance lingers long as poems saved in vintage bottles pour on pages. Afraid inside, the struggle, soul, and skin/distress, it slits my seams, split selves, I hem/—a lot composed and seldom scant mayhem/My looks blend sight, sound, angst, and song akin.

Dr. Rubeena Anjum, a retired psychologist and educator residing in Dallas, is the author of My Photo Album (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Bosphorus Review of Books, Artistic Antidote UMN Clinical Affairs, Corona Virus Anthology by Austin International Poetry Festival-2020, WildSound Festival, Art on the Trails: Mending 2021 Chapbook, Word City Literary Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, The Writer’s Garret-Common Language Project Anthology-2023, and Southwestern American Literature among others.