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Gleanings: Old Poems, New Poems by Vivian Shipley The Louisiana Literature Press |
A review by Marianne Poloskey
Just around the time Gleaning was released, Vivian Shipley won the Connecticut Book Award for Poetry for her previous book, When There Is No Shore. Her numerous other awards include the Lucille Medwick Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Hart Crane Poetry Prize, the Robert Frost Foundation Poetry Prize, and the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize. Shipley is a Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor and editor of the Connecticut Review. She teaches at Southern Connecticut State University.
Gleanings: Old Poems, New Poems, is Vivian Shipley's 11th poetry collection. Instead of presenting the poems by publication dates of the books in which they previously appeared, Shipley has divided them into the chronological order of her life in order to achieve greater cohesion. This approach makes it difficult to track Shipley's development as a writer. On the other hand, it does give us a good overview of her development as a person throughout the various stages of her life.
Vivian Shipley enjoys writing about food, especially fruits and vegetables. She describes how they are grown and/or harvested and plans her menu "out loud," the kitchen apparently her favorite room in the house. And she takes us shopping with her. One item that intrigues her is the artichoke, mentioned in a number of poems. In "Outside the New Haven Lawn Club," she says, "I ask Mario, the man who sweeps the red clay courts, / where I can find viridian artichokes for stuffing. / Around the corner, go right to DeRose's Marketplace, / where he buys strawberries the size of pullet eggs, / an hour of labor for a taste of spring." One has the distinct impression food is personal to her: "Carting my artichokes, / I move on to stare at meatballs dotted with pignoli."
She also mentions artichokes in Part 1 of "The Step-Father," adding some interesting trivia we may not know, as she often does: "Unable to read road signs, the son / I had acquired like a dowry made up a game for us / out of spotting the Jerusalem artichoke that laced / highways in every state. . . . I learn / that the Jerusalem artichoke was planted by Indians, / then spread eastward. In 1805, Lewis and Clark /dined on the tubers baked by a squaw in territory / later labeled North Dakota. In his diary, Clark / recorded the Jerusalem artichoke with its potato / texture and sweet, nut taste."
On occasion, Vivian thinks back to going fishing with her father, cherishing the unhurried peace of sitting together, waiting for a catch. She continues this tradition years later when she goes fishing with her sons, telling them stories about their grandfather. But when they ask questions about cruelty or about family secrets, she is careful with her answers, trying to protect them from knowing things they may not be able to handle, as in "Catfishing in Cumberland Lake, Kentucky": "I do urge Todd / not to think about what it's impossible to know: / do catfish big as men, big as Jaws, lurk submerged in mud, wait / at the base of the dam? What is gone, is gone, like our family, / or the stripped limbs of old elms rising like arms / lifting to heaven." But she ends the poem on a hopeful note: ". . . we / could see that when one shore closed, the lake began to / open another one, hinting at yet another one beyond every bend."
And she does worry – not only about doing the right things on behalf of her sons, but also about losing them to time, even when they are still quite young. Yet, she knows she must let them go, in increments. She describes this tug of war within herself on her son Eric's first day of school: "The day must come when I will force / his snowsuited body out, without immunity, into January / mornings so cold milk jugs would freeze if I left them out / on the doorstep. Can I be ready with a message to pin on him / as his boots scale snow, tracking maps I have not traced? / Boarding the bus, Eric twists around to me from the landing, / and I reach out to touch his shoulder, then stand waving him / out of sight. My stomach cupped in my hands, I bow my head / and let my son go. Knowing how wild horses are broken, / I pray that he remembers the soles of his bare feet running / through bluegrass looming over hills in Hardin County."
Her poem "Ice Bites Inward" seems to sum up Shipley's philosophy:
White has been dropping
as long as you can remember.
Running through March snow
you feel it fall behind you.
At a certain moment, the ground
is no longer brown, the way
day drifts to dark. You almost see
color go, but you always look away
just as light is evaporating
like the last drop of water pooled
on asphalt. When you exhale,
there is a cloud. Will a thought
slip in, cause you to miss
the breath that separates a moment
from your last? Flakes fill the night
one by one, countless like years.
In such whiteness, ice invents itself;
never look up or back, only on.
Gleanings is a big book, full of insights. In poem after poem, we can identify with the struggles and concerns Vivian Shipley expresses so honestly. When read the way they are meant to be read, from beginning to end, these poems become more than merely a collection. They become a walk through the author's life.
Marianne Poloskey is author of the book, Climbing the Shadows. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as North American Review, Louisiana Literature, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and War, Literature & the Arts (WLA). Her work is also included in the anthologies Grief and American Diaspora: Poetry of Displacement. She has written book reviews for Valparaiso Poetry Review and Rattle.
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