By David A. James, in the News-Miner:
What struck me most about Marjorie was that she spent significantly more time than most of us engaged in that sadly undervalued act of thinking. Fortunately…she frequently put her thoughts down on paper, often in the form of short, penetrating poetry. “Inside, Outside, Morningside,” a collection of some of her work has just been published by the Ester Republic Press, providing readers with an opportunity to discover a voice that was taken from us too soon.…while the poems are deeply felt, the poet isn’t selfobsessed. Kowalski Cole was, more than anything else, an observer. And she possessed a rare gift for finding words that brought her observations to life.From CBR:
Alaskan poet Marjorie Kowalski Cole’s collection, Inside, Outside, Morningside (Ester Republic Press, 2009), won me over on the first page in the concluding lines of “Desire”:
The aspens shake in the wind
like the bells of a prayer wheel.
I would have what is within and without
arrive at one still moment
together.
A rare balance is struck “within and without” that continues poem after poem. The natural world astounds…Themes coalesce around Cole’s multiple roles as mother, daughter, wife, world traveler, spiritual seeker and environmentalist. None of these categories are mutually exclusive. Connectedness is everything.
