Review Excerpt by Elizabeth Laden
Writer and Publisher, Island Park News, Island Park, ID

Sunny's poems brilliantly reflect life's sharp edges and gentle cycles. She has a knack for nailing down the essence of life's sorrow and joy. Some are the best I have read by any modern Western poet.
 

Review Excerpt by Karen Bossick
The Wood River Journal, SunValley, ID

Sunny Fairchild Bingo's poems will make you want to sing or cry--or both. This amazing writer, who has written songs for everyone from Paul "The Beatle" McCartney, to Merle Travis and Gene Autry, has penned an array of words from the heart. Some reflect the pained torture of a sad childhood; others talk of love and loss. Still others reflect a uniquely humorous look on life.
 

Review Excerpt by Johanna Love
Features Editor, Jackson Hole News&Guide, Jackson WY

Bingo's poems throb with the agonies and joys of a many-faceted life. "Sing or Cry" is full of a woman's insight, Idaho charm and revealing word choice. She digs at the core of desire, pain and our shared humanity.
 

Review by Amy Christensen
Idaho State Journal, Pocatello, ID

"Sing or Cry" by Nelda ‘Sunny’ Fairchild Bingo is a fascinating journey of a life well lived and well written. In the beginning, her poems are straightforward with descriptions of exterior life. Then, as she grows in understanding and experience, they contain the very human complex feelings of love, loss, despair, and contentment.

There is a tradition in literature that speaks to the chronicling of ‘everyday life.’ At it’s best this form has given us "Judge Tenderly of Me" by Dickinson or "Leaves of Grass" by Whitman, and many others. It takes a brave poet indeed to shake off the temptation of being esoteric and unfathomable to all but a few in a small circle of avid interpreters. More than bravery however, it takes talent to write of everyday things. A mighty goal is to give up the cloak of obscure meanings and to make the plateau of ordinary life not only interesting but relevant to the reader.

Adamantly evident is that Bingo is a poet as well as a singer songwriter. Often in reading a poem it seems the tune is implied but just out of reach. The complicated rhymes often speak to music, but the rhythm remains deeply poetic, much in tune with but not as sparsely written as Dickinson. Bingo shines when she can whittle down the words to a few well chosen snips as in "Left Behind"

One left-
One bird
Shivering in the field bereft,
Dragging his injured wing.
Of all the noisy, brilliant
Beautiful birds
One left-
And he has forgotten the sky,
And how to sing.

Time after time there are moments of brilliance in "Sing or Cry." They come as light comes through racing clouds in One Perfect Day Remembered, and Centrifugal Force as well as others. Numerous poems pull the reader in two ways at once as she builds the strength of love only to tear it down in the mundane details that couch every experience.

As she writes in Joey Was, to love as a child is one thing, "...And oh the joy he put into that day...Holding to my hand we skipped away...Laughing down the hill, I see him still..." To lose as a woman is something else as Bingo writes of in My Loss, "...give thanks but curse the cost of loving him. . , the hard years spent alone..." Not only does the subject matter ripen, while still faithfully reflecting that ‘everyday’ experience, but the writing follows suit. Although the poems in the last chapter, Life Goes On, are definitely darker and more complex, they still remain remarkably accessible.

Taken as a whole, this collection offers a map of the emotional maturation of a remarkable woman that can be read by anyone. This work has the potential to be absorbed in one great bittersweet gulp, or savored time and again. Bingo lays out her most deeply felt thoughts and moments with honesty. Pain is tempered in sharing, and love shines through bright and whole as if it had just been found. The poems are the sentiment of both song and tears melded into one rich emotion. What an amazingly rich gift, so full of honesty, so true to a real life lived, and untainted by regret.