Crayon Colors for Serial Killers
Finishing Line Press
$14.99
You can purchase a copy here.
Reviewed by Katch Campbell
“You’ve written a terrifying collection of images,” were my first words to Sue William Silverman when we spoke about, Crayon Colors For Serial Killers, 2022, Finishing Line Press. Sue, once my teacher, now colleague and friend, laughed for a moment then shared that she has always had a fascination for serial killers. Not in a voyeuristic sense, but in one that stems from a deep desire to acknowledge all that is human about us, including the possibility of redemption. Crayon Colors For Serial Killers, is Sue’s third book of poetry and if you are looking to wake up from the stupor that has been COVID isolation it will not disappoint. Written to address her fury at an America that has spun out of control, Silverman pulls from her studies of aberrant psychological behaviors and creates a harrowing parallel. The collection explores the complexity of a soul who started as innocent then took a wrong turn. A slant conversation on the origin of evil, the seed for forgiveness, and the unescapable truth that history rides roughshod between both. It is organized into three sections, Her Palette, Story Time, and Her Subjects and its speaker uses two main forms of expression; English Haiku/ Senryu in the first and third section allow the speaker to howl at life in quick succession:
Eat heart, soul, you sky-
eyed girl, ghost face unmasked glass
façade of cracked moon.
Maskless mouths, droplets
shearing tar roof, slanting to
blue-limbo silence.
And nine prose poems as part of, Story Time, the middle section, which advances the narrative with a poignancy evoking compassion:
She climbs the bus stairs, settles beside a boy with blonde hair. In her backpack are sharpened pencils, fresh crayons, and brightly colored safety scissors designed for little hands to manipulate and not get fatigued.
Silverman’s choice of Senryn and short prose are adeptly used and avoid indulgence or overcoming the reader. The “snapshot” like first and third sections can be read at varying pace as one would use a View Finder, lingering a moment to consider or move past quickly. The Prose section is experienced as a series of shadowboxes where the imagery is more fixed and gives the reader space to contemplate the complexities of one human life. Innocence. Isolation. Creativity. Violence. Loss.
The final Senryu:
Empty as sorrow
rivers floating lost dirge boats
no destination.
Crayon Colors For Serial Killers, is an invitation to consider that redemption exists for humanity. While sorrow offers no destination, hope offers us, a path back home.
Katch Campbell is a connector. With a master’s degree in Science and an MFA in poetry, she creates metaphors for her patients and others about the world around us. Her work is an inquiry on the atrocities we commit consciously and unconsciously against each other and the universe. Katch serves as Vice President and is a permanent faculty member at the River Pretty Writing Retreat, a bi-annual workshop in the Ozarks. She has co-led immersive poetry trips to Slovenia and Italy and used to edit for ZoMag.com.