• Paperback: 112 pages • Publisher: GILBERTE PUBLISHING • Language: English • ISBN-10: 0989754316 • ISBN-13: 978-0989754316 The Leaf Does Not Believe It Will Fall (Gilberte Publishing) by Marina Brown is a genuine book. Written with heart-felt honesty and thoughtful insights, the poems are filled with eloquence and grace. Evocative, intelligent, and sensual, the poems resonate with life, love, and adventure, yet find that delicate balance between exposure and restraint, leaving a touch of mystery. The craftsmanship in the poems is consistently well done, and the emotions roar through with force and feeling. The visuals — “daubs of light, chartreuse and ruby, opaline blues, bounding titanium pools that throbbed like heartbeats”—which are evoked by the written words are often startling with their impact, and always shaped with an artist’s sharp eye for the meaningful and the beautiful. Like the true artist she is, Brown knows well how to use a simple image to create a complex reaction. It’s no surprise that Brown’s visual images are so expressive as the poet is also an artist whose paintings show a similar feel for humanity, grace, and the beauty of simple movement. In The Leaf Does Not Believe It Will Fall, the poet invites her readers in for an intimate glance into her world with this fine, passionate book of poetry. As a poet, author, artist, musician and bold world traveler, Brown’s experiences and vision are broad, yet personal and sensitive. Some works are a blend of confessional poetry, some have a tender gloss of the pastoral tradition, a few sing with charming iambic pentameter, and many reveal an intellectual’s thoughtful point of view. Yet all are imminently reachable. The poems ring with a fevered desire to experience all life offers. For example, in “Spring’s Morning,” Brown writes: I want a bee to land on my hand, for us both to feel unafraid. I want to watch a mosquito rides its raindrop from a cloud. I want the squirrel to love me and lay an acorn at my feet. I want my soul awakened from its deepening sleep. For all the wonder and hope frequently expressed, many poems are not without a sense of irony and sadness, as in “Our Brother’s Keeper,” a poem that could be about an insect, or a man with no soul of his own in need of a host. I saw a mite greet a bee, carefully stepped and calm. And nuzzling into her fur, It climbed onto her back with the tenderest touch, And settled in to kill her. Perhaps one of the most moving—and certainly one of the more complex and philosophical in the collection—is the poem which contains the line that becomes the title. In “The Goose’s Walk,” Brown confronts unexpected death. The goose who walked into the path of a car, “the man with the knife before he / will murder,” and other sudden moments of demise and sudden change set up the poem for the ultimate line: And so—with the goose—marching forward into life’s traffic, too late for anticipation, teetering on the cusp of an outcome unknown, I look toward the trees, And sense that like me, the leaf does not believe it will fall. The poems in Marina Brown’s collection resonate with life and wonder and passion—and should make readers look anew at the world around them. If the test of a poem is whether it makes you feel something, then Brown scores high with this collection. Brown is a former professional ballet dancer with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, a deep-water sailor, an exhibiting watercolorist, an RN, a cellist, and a traveler who loves setting her novels in exotic locations to which she's traveled--including the Deep South! Her novels, including the multiple award-winning The Orphan of Pitigliano, consistently win awards. She also contributes regularly to Florida newspapers and publications.