The Yellow Magnolia and other poems, Glentula Press, was released on June 30th 2021. It’s now available at Let’s Talk Books, 25 King Street E, Cobourg and Lighthouse Books 5 Main Street, Brighton where it sells for $14. If you’d like a copy mailed to you for $15 CA please fill out the contact form below.

The Yellow Magnolia                                                                        Reviewed by Joan Sutcliffe

by Felicity Sidnell Reid

Glentula Press, 2021, 40 pp                                                      ISBN  978-1-7776853-3-1

In this beautiful little book the choice quality of descriptive imagery captures the reader from the start. As we are introduced to the grey heron rising and the red fox on the icy footpath by the blue crinkled marsh, then told of the buoyant youth buried aeons ago with his ancient flute where the great auks nested, our senses are opened and eager for more.

The poet has a knack for touching one’s heart with a nostalgia for what has passed and hinting at the mystery of that which is concealed just beyond the vision. We meet an intense appreciation of the wilderness and its creatures, a reverence for the natural ferocity and a wistfulness for the vulnerability to environmental change. The vivid colours of wild flowers and grasses inspire a delight to be found in the essence of every unfettered imagination.

From the disturbing element suggested by a discovery of archaic bones on an eroded river bank, the poems progress through wounds of historical memory to accumulate into today’s pandemic scope. Yet throughout, the tenderness of human relationships with their precious joys, their intimate moments and their laughter is never forgotten.

The last poem, which gives its title to the book, is a masterly crafted tribute to someone dearly loved and missed. Remembered in poignant expressions that turn the everyday into the purely poetic, it brings to life an abundance of experiences. The shared enjoyment of both the simple and the complex that created and enriched the solidarity of a friendship accentuates the message of the whole book.    

To order your signed copy for your home library, send $15, includes $3 for p & h, to Felicity Sidnell Reid, 21 Parliament Street, Colborne, Ontario, K0K 1S0. The book is also available from Felicity’s website felicitysidnellreid.com