New Love Poems
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A wide-ranging collection of poems about love, extending from the personal to the spiritual and from the romantic to the platonic.
Benczik’s debut collection takes a broad look at love, beginning with wooing and flirtation and moving to romance, heartbreak, friendship, love for oneself and experiences with the divine. The characters in the romantic love poems are often left unnamed, creating the feeling of a universal experience to which readers can easily relate. Although Benczik writes about heartbreak and rejection, love in her poems is almost always a source of healing; the collection tells of new loves that “kissed the tears away” and the speaker’s quest for love in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and the 9/11 attacks. The longer narrative poems are tempered by shorter pieces that evoke a Dorothy Parker–like sense of humor. In “Valentine’s Day,” she says simply, “A celebrated date / to osculate / your mate.” Her tongue-in-cheek wisecracks are evident throughout, but so is a sense of genuine hopefulness and a desire to uplift and enlighten the reader. The poems frequently break into the second person with words of wisdom and comfort. “I want to give you this gift in case you were missing it like I was,” the narrator says after describing a long struggle to gain attention from others. “So now, let’s tell everybody the secret / You have God’s Full Attention, too.” Religion is a recurring theme, but as with the rest of the collection, the poems attempt to represent a broad range of experiences; Buddha appears in addition to Catholic saints, and an unspecified God makes multiple appearances. The poems often venture into rhyme but never adhere to a fixed form for long. Readers are left with the lingering sensation that this talented new author is not only exploring love but her own poetic voice and range.
A sweet, philosophical collection of poems about love in all its forms.
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About the Book
What is love? How do we get and keep that almost indescribably happy feeling?
The collection, New Love Poems, by award-winning poet Terry Benczik moves with tenderness, sensitivity, and humor through love's many moods. The book reflects the wild adventure and charming idyll that romantic feelings provide.
It describes a woman's journey of love through a jungle of emotions, from attraction and excitement through hurt, despair, longing, and hope. There are also portraits of feelings of love that soar and bring the reader to an elevated territory. The thoughts and feelings here are images and stories we might all recognize and cherish. Some poems spark sentiment, wistfulness, desire, and laughter. Other poems reflect love, not just for a romantic partner, but for humanity and the divine beloved; conveying a realization that the love we carry in our hearts is the most precious gift we can give to ourselves and to others.
"Reading poetry awakens our own inner artisan energies and transforms us. New Love Poems is a treasure of blessing-filled healing poems for both heart and soul. Terry Benczik is truly Rumi’s daughter with her profound, authentic heart poetry."
-Rev. Jayne Howard Feldman, author of Commune with the Angels, Driving Under the Influence of Angels, and Angels by My Side
"Well, a rare combination of talents is our Terry Benczik! She is fully conscious of the joys of human life—that 'pleasing, anxious being,' as Thomas Gray so memorably described it; and simultaneously she is movingly mindful of Virgil's 'tears of things'; (lacrimae rerum). Yet she somehow manages to suffuse a tender charm over both these aspects of our mortal experiences, both the weeping and the laughter. I'm sure it is her aesthetic sensitivity which I find so appealing -that gentle power, that verbal elegance, that poignant memorability, which characterizes her poetic achievement."
-Colin Dexter, creator, Inspector Morse
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/terry-benczik/new-love-poems/
About the Author
Author Terry Benczik has enjoyed a lifelong love of poetry and writing. At 24, she was hired as a full-time staff news writer for CBS News, writing for “Nightwatch,” and later for “The CBS Morning News.” After CBS, a desire to make a difference brought her into government service, working in offices at the World Trade Center (WTC). She was part of a team that won the New York PRSA’s Big Apple Award for their work with international media following the WTC bombing in 1993. She brought reporters on tours of the explosion site and connected them with those who were protecting and rebuilding the damaged areas. Ms. Benczik’s essay on her experience the morning of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks was selected by the Library of Congress for the “American Memory” exhibit. Teaching material based on her story was developed by the Library of Congress for classroom use. Ms. Benczik’s essay on the George Washington Bridge is in the book “Perpetual Motion,” and her essay on the Holland Tunnel is in “Today’s Public Relations,” by Heath and Coombs. Terry is acknowledged in seven other books including “American Television Drama,” by Dr. William Hawes; and in “The Remorseful Day,” by Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter. In 2007, she won a silver medal in Poetry.com’s International Poetry Contest. An avid beachcomber, classic film buff, and appreciator of the arts, Ms. Benczik lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with a few prized seashells and many, many books.