Synopsis "Something Like a Life"
In Something Like a Life, Sally Zakariya welcomes readers into the fold of family, introducing us to those who shaped her, those who surrounded her in life and love. She recalls childhood memories seeing a moose up close and discovering dragonfly wings and loon cries, but also of moments for escape from anger to the solitude of climbing trees. Delving into family history, she unearths infants lost to influenza and a dark past on slave plantations. Exploring connections between nature and memory, Zakariya catalogues elements of the landscapes she has known and the people who inhabited them - her sister bride, her fisherman grandfather, her distant son, her mother who embraces silence but whistles in heaven, and her father who sings to her in the old Plymouth. After contemplation of loss and the power of nature in the universe, she closes the collection by considering her own life's finish line. - Cathy Hailey, Northern Regional VP, Poetry Society of Virginia... Sally Zakariya is an established poet whose latest collection, Something Like a Life, rises to the pinnacle of her talents. The poems flow esthetically from beginning to end with a heart-warming universality of nostalgia and memoir, and yet they keep the reader enthralled more in the present than in the past. Sally's craftsmanship blossoms in rhythmic finesse and crescendos in grace to climax in a language of pure poetry. Something Like a Life is a virtuoso performance. - Richard Eric Johnson, author, Watching Angels Dance by Candlelight and Memoir Poetic of a Naked Cop
