Title: A Dark Wood: Poetical Sketches on Life & Being in the World
Author: Wandile Ganya
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
ISBN: 978-1-5462-8057-6
Pages: 108
Genre: Poetry
Reviewed by: Allison Walker
Pacific Book Review
Some poems strike you because they reveal to you how you’ve been feeling, even if you were previously unaware of the depth of your emotion. Others seem to be about something different every time you read them, and many of author Wandile Ganya’s poems in the collection A Dark Wood: Poetical Sketches on Life & Being in the World are like this. Sometimes they are about wandering desolate and lost, and other times they are about finding your way out. Maybe the poems actually show us the paradox of living in the wood while your spirit yearns for eternity, the irony of physically being in the woods but spiritually finding a way into lightness. This poetry suggests it’s possible to exist in both spaces at once.
Like it’s namesake from Dante’s Divine Comedy, A Dark Wood: Poetical Sketches on Life & Being in the World is about blundering through life the best we know how, sometimes suffering but sometimes finding goodness there too. Like Dante displaced in his dark wood, Ganya focuses primarily about finding your way into the light, and especially into faith in God. There are many Biblical references, for those readers who wish to recognize them, but the religious theme is not overwhelming.
Ganya experiments with different forms of poetry: short, quick poems; poems that read almost like prose; repetition poems; some poems which rhyme and others which do not. This is interesting because throughout it all, Ganya is able to maintain a distinct voice. If you were to place these poems in a selection with other authors, you could distinguish Ganya’s by the voice, even if they were all the same form. Moreover, Ganya understands how to use short lines to make an impression, how the words need to stand alone in their line, and with the rest of the stanza, and with the rest of the poem. The fast-paced piece, “On Existence,” is an excellent example. The poem is short, but powerful. It rhymes well, the kind of rhyming which happens naturally. You do not realize you’ve been reading rhymes until your mouth takes on that rhythm. “In the Dark of the Wood” is my favorite in the collection, and also one that happens to be a repetition poem. The first three stanzas are powerful, then the melodic repetition takes hold. These are wonderful examples of the way.
Ganya experiments with form, but maintains a unique voice and theme for the collection. A Dark Wood is an eloquent, meaningful collection of poems that simultaneously challenges readers but also gives them only as much as they want at the time. Like rich pastries, nibble on these poems slowly and softly, savoring each bite.
