In Steady, Anne Whitehouse’s new poetry collection, the natural world takes on the role of a main character, in a manner of speaking. Interspersed with tender reflections on love, chances not taken, and the curious human experience overall, these pieces remain earth-grounded, scattering reflections of that experience through all living things.
From Pond Lives
The decomposing matter
floating on the surface
emerged from the bottom,
where organisms live off the waste
of fungi, bacteria, and worms.
The autumn winds and rains
mixed up layers of water
that summer had stratified.
As I paddled the canoe,
glimpses of aquatic life
beckoned below me:
a flash of a fish disappearing
in a ruffle of waving weeds,
a turtle paddling towards a log,
snakes, worms, and crabs scuttling
into the rich murk.
That’s not to say there aren’t tales to be told, however. In pieces like From the Life of Iris Origo, Frida, and Bernadette, the reader sets off on a winding road through events from various timelines, historic to the present day. This micro-storytelling in verse opens the door to familial relationships, romantic endeavors, and striving to understand the self in ways both timeless and relatable.
From Bernadette
I was late to marriage,
late to motherhood.
When I met Jamie in New York,
something blossomed in me
that had been dormant.
His jazz club became my hangout,
I dressed up every night
with some place to go.
He was the owner, and I was his girl.
Jamie’s mind had layers of learning
like geologic strata.
He was a born teacher,
a shamanistic poet
and spirit guide for many.
His love was like cool water
from a deep well. Â
Still, the path returns to a rooted place, one of rumination on life’s lengthy (and simultaneously too-short) journey during the Earth’s warmest month. It buttons up the collection using a common thread and an apt title: the steady passage of time, of the individual through their days, and the happenings and observations that shape them as they travel.
From Late Summer, Block Island
From the marshes comes the trilling
of red-winged blackbirds, in the thicket
the cardinal’s chirp, the meadow lark’s whistle,
chatter of a hawk chased by crows.
In the afternoon, sunlight behind
banked clouds glints off a sea
as pale as isinglass, reflecting back
my memories as I write,
until the day when words will be
all that are left of me,
words and images
and other people’s memories.