Raves for "This Dance" in Neumu

Jewel Mathieson's poetry has that raw soul feel, those garage rock rhythms, that ecstatic rock and roll transcendence. Who knew that words, just words, could dance across the pages the way her words do, could make such a loud noise, could shout and pound and dance and sing. Much of "This Dance" celebrates the life-spirit dance that Jewel teaches each week in an auditorium at Sonoma, California's community center. She doesn't really teach though, but rather, just dances and as we dance with her, in the same room, we learn. That dance is about breaking free, of living free and living true. And that's what many of these poems are about.

When Jewel writes in her poem, "We Have Come To Be Danced"
...not the pretty dance
not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
but the claw our way back into the belly
of the sacred, sensual animal dance
the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
the holding the precious moment in the palms of our hands and feet dance...
she is really getting to the heart of the matter.

In poem after poem, she writes of using dance to experience liberation, as a way of finding our way back to a communal consciousness, as a way of shedding the societal baggage that keep us alienated and isolated. "This Dance" is her gift to you, to me, to anyone and everyone who is willing to take a chance and live, really live.

-- Michael Goldberg, Editor in Chief, Neumu, neumu.net