Two White Beds by Laura Cherry
Maya Angelou said “I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is daring to dare.”
Winner of Minerva Rising’s inaugural chapbook contest, “Two White Beds” is a collection of poetry that dares. It tells the story of two young Victorian women, Sam and Millie, who fall in love and must then decide how their stories will unfold.
We lucky readers are brought along on a train ride to another age, through history, persimmon groves, “months as a laudanum haze”, and “dark nights that breed strange illusions.” With erstwhile language, Poet Laura Cherry captures the timeless sense of being wrapped in an emotional maelstrom with no clear way out.
In clear, first-person voices, the two characters’ passions for each other smolder in subtlety with a tense clarity that is both veiled and intense.
In “Millie Afire”, Millie says, “I can’t recall/ what underlay my days/ before this thrall.” Who among us cannot relate to the feelings of a new love, after the beloved has gone away?
In “Millie’s Vision”, Millie directs to Sam, “You always called me brave./ We’ll see of what I’m made.”
There is no doubt as to what Minerva Rising’s 2013 chapbook award winner is made: hearty doses of discipline, creativity, wisdom, craft and voice. Congratulations again to Laura for this stunning book of poetry.
