Dr Glenville Ash­by

By virtue of its an­tiq­ui­ty we re­vere the Book of Psalms, in­ton­ing its con­tents with rev­er­en­tial fear. The Psalms sooth and em­pow­er the soul. And they stir and tem­per the pas­sions. For sheer ex­is­ten­tial val­ue, Any Giv­en Day echoes the Da­vid­i­an clas­sic. Pat­ti Tana is a clas­si­cist-pro­found­ly wit­ty and provoca­tive in ad­dress­ing life's every of­fer­ing, from the fleet­ing to its gravest of chal­lenges.I had the plea­sure of see­ing Tana per­form in New York. A Pro­fes­sor Emeri­ta of Eng­lish at Nas­sau Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege (SUNY); she is im­pres­sive-the con­sum­mate artist with an en­gag­ing or­a­tor­i­cal pres­ence. Po­et­ic read­ings de­mand that much. But words in them­selves can stand alone-imag­i­na­tive­ly emo­tive and in­spi­ra­tional when clev­er­ly used. Like the mas­ter builder who cre­ates an en­vi­able ed­i­fice, Tana, through­out this en­deav­our, has weaved lit­er­ary mag­ic.Any Giv­en Day is prayer­ful­ly philo­soph­i­cal. A chron­i­cle of life with its many vi­cis­si­tudes: plea­sures, joys, sor­rows, and pain-and writ­ten with the pol­ished ease of a sea­soned po­et. Tana man­ages to ex­tract di­a­logue and life from the seem­ing­ly in­con­se­quen­tial, even de­liv­er­ing im­ages of im­pas­sioned eroti­cism with sooth­ing con­trol.Here, spon­tane­ity has its own struc­ture:"I be­come wa­ter when you dive in­to me the way a bird dives in­to the sea I be­come wa­ter."And in In Waves Wash High, she writes:

"I rock in­side your boat gen­tly, then hard as waves wash high around us.

"There is wit...and hu­mour too.

"To love a dog is to know love is messy

Jumps on you with mud­dy paws

Slips you the tongue

While lick­ing your face

Hides brave with birds

Hides from thun­der

Hears all, smells all, nev­er tells."

Any Giv­en Day is di­vid­ed in­to sec­tions, one of which is called Chai, the He­brew word for life. Based on gema­tria (He­brew nu­merol­o­gy) that as­cribes good for­tune to the num­ber 18, Tana apt­ly of­fers 18 po­ems, with each, 18 lines in length. This is where Tana soars. A trib­ute to her de­ceased moth­er, its mes­sage is un­equiv­o­cal: Self­less de­vo­tion and grat­i­tude to­ward loved ones-now de­bil­i­tat­ed and help­less. It is crafti­ly con­strued and a tes­ta­ment to Tana's am­bas­sado­r­i­al com­po­sure amid the pangs of im­mi­nent sep­a­ra­tion and loss.

In On Call, she mulls: "It's hard this dy­ing. Her moans are a new sound in our home. I gave her a bell, but she calls "Pat­ti!" And I come. Even in my sleep. Even in her sleep."

When the in­evitable comes,

Tana re­sponds. In Stark Beau­ty she writes:

"Af­ter she la­bored to leave her body

My moth­er's face was com­posed in stark beau­ty.

Cheek­bones de­fined her heart-shaped face, pink skin smooth, lips moist,

Eye­lids gen­tly closed in rest.

I thought she was alive.

And in Ves­sel, we read:

"When on­ly the ves­sel was left clean and full of light

I took her face in my hands and kissed her cheeks

Her lips rose at both sides and mine rose too to mir­ror her sat­is­fac­tion at a life well lived..."

Be­twixt the sub­lim­i­nal tone are im­ages-raw and earthy. And through­out, they lend an in­struc­tive ad­di­tive to the Mo­sa­ic Law-Ho­n­our thy par­ents.

In essence, this homage tran­scends the hu­man nar­ra­tive and ex­plores life's deep­er mys­ter­ies. But what­ev­er life of­fers, Tana ac­cepts gra­cious­ly-nev­er re­sist­ing the dy­namism of its ebb and flow. She yearns with­out overindul­gence, and may have well found the key to au­then­tic liv­ing-with­out la­bor­ing ef­fu­sive­ly. Life is ever rich and in­fi­nite-even in the face of hu­man vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

In so many ways, Any Giv­en Day is a tri­umph over fear, in­su­lar­i­ty and psy­chic im­pris­on­ment. Any giv­en time, or day-for that mat­ter-life is wor­thy of cel­e­bra­tion-un­re­served­ly.

With inim­itable style, Tana de­liv­ers the best of ex­is­ten­tial­ism with elo­quent clar­i­ty. Marked­ly in­ge­nious and re­source­ful, Any Giv­en Day beck­ons us-in di­verse ways-to find mean­ing and val­ue in all our ex­pe­ri­ences. Like the pan tuner-ear to in­stru­ment-lis­ten­ing for that tonal range, Tana, in un­der­stand­ing her read­ers, nudges them-ever so sub­tly-to­ward greater aware­ness and self-dis­cov­ery.

Any Giv­en Day

Au­thor: Pat­ti Tana, 2011

Rat­ings:**** High­ly rec­om­mend­ed

IS­BN: 978-1-57604-327

Whit­tie Pub­li­ca­tions, Inc

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