Poet Judith Skillman Reviews Carol Smallwood's "In the Measuring"

Title: In the Measuring

by Carol Smallwood

Publisher: Shanti Arts

August 2018, Paperback:120 pages, 

ISBN: 978-1-947067-38-7

$17.00

Reviewed by Judith Skillman, originally for Compulsive Reader

Carol Smallwood’s language is exuberant as she threads themes of childhood, adolescence, maturity, aging, and mortality through the seventy-seven poems of her new collection, In the Measuring. Using free verse as well as formal, she examines seasons, myths, childhood, nature, and the plethora of experiences we encounter in everyday life.

Mysteries arise for Smallwood as she examines the ordinary. Under her microscope, something as everyday as a carwash changes suddenly to a cornfield: “Driving home, the corn that’d emerged in spring in such/straight emerald lines paraded in crumpled gold.” (“Today,” p. 34). Here, memory illuminates a landscape one generally equates with winter: “…–it was windy,/bags and newspapers flying the streets.” Through her wielding of the microscopic lens, a stray moment of recall provides not only a blast of color, but also a dose of nostalgia.

The saying goes: “the devil is in the details”; for Smallwood, however, one may say “the angel is in the details”. Whether it is a person, a landscape or a thing, concrete images accrue and become more than the sum of their parts. 

For instance, in “Falling Leaves” (p. 36), the change of season from summer to fall creates nuances of feeling—in this case, of exile—which are echoed by new developments that have sprung up in a familiar locale. We have experienced this in contemporary life; it’s become normative and expected. For the witness in this poem, the tree losing its leaves becomes a metaphor for abrupt and continual change:

Nearby stands one tree

with fallen leaves crumpled

by sea change without

having seen the sea

Bringing the sea inland and giving the tree permission to “be” sensory without anthropomorphizing it is an angelic act, given the harsh details that “swirl” through this short piece.

The aforementioned exuberance comes with the author’s novel treatment of the everyday—those ordinary, mundane tasks and chores we take for granted. Who would think to write a pantoum about dishwashing liquid? Yet Smallwood carries it off, and braids colloquial language with scientific. She assumes a persona the reader can identify with:

There are so many on the shelves but had to select one —

antibacterial, concentrated, degreaser, biodegradable:

how bad were phosphates (what did they do) in the long run?

Surely an experienced housekeeper should be capable.(“A Dishwashing Liquid Pantoum”)

In addition to glancing aslant at a world overfull with choices,In the Measuringreveals the journey of an open-minded life-long learner and an ironic soul, one who wanders lightly through days and years. The line of questioning follows an all too familiar path we all tread—that of the mortal whose days and years are numbered. Through many modes of assessment, and myriad daily problems to be solved (even the mundane filling out of a questionnaire at the dentist (“Waiting for the Dental  Hygienist” p. 84) standard communications become wholly inadequate.

As the adventure unfolds, this explorer searching for a way to properly interpret, label, and explain the world in scientific terms learns lessons she passes on to the reader:

How much knowing is good for us to know?

Venus, the admired morning star, is a sulfuric hell.

Know Thyself can be a Medusa turn-to-stone blow:…(“Knowing”, 70)

When examining the role of childhood myths, from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, to the Wizard of Oz, Smallwood waxes feminist: “Sleeping Beauty/was awakened by the prince./What would’ve happened if/she hadn’t been a beauty?” (79)

The overwhelming amount of information that must be processed more and more quickly in our contemporary world cannot be reduced—that is no longer an option. Reading Smallwood, however, is not only possible but advisable. She herself is an avid reader. Perhaps the best we can do to insulate ourselves from the inevitable intrusion of overload is to opt in to one of Smallwood’s worlds. An ideal example can be found in one of her vignettes, a four-line poem emblematic of the whole:

I’m a child again

wanting to read

darkened tree bark

like Braille (“On Days of Slow Rain”, 96)

As a wanderer, this female Don Quixote struggles until, as a compulsive searcher, she finds a way to lower the bar and arrive at home under her own terms. That is, she comes to grips with the impossibility of finding a proper answer to unanswerable questions. She turns from shadows cast by inanimate objects to actual living things, even if those things must be  bugs:

 “The Bug”/ “was on the post office floor so put it in my purse:…” (p. 100). 

What a surprising move.

The persona then goes on to describe what this insect liked: “…Subway lettuce, drops of coke in the car;”—and brings the bug round to another angelic moment: “It had survived countless species long extinct–/and if we wait, we may see the Spring”. Spring is capitalized intentionally here, for it is a Spring where the reader, who, we learn, lives between worlds (“I Read that Between,” 113) can hold winter and summer, and therefore light and darkness, at once.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Judith Skillman’s recent books are Premise of Light, Tebot Bach; and Came Home to Winter, Deerbrook Editions. She is the recipient of grants from Artist Trust and from the Academy of American Poets. Her work has appeared in Shenandoah, Poetry, Cimarron Review, The Southern Review, and other journals. Visit www.judithskillman.com

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG AND GETTING REVIEWS

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Michelle Everett Wilbert Reviews Carol Smallwood's "A Matter of Selection"

Title: A Matter of Selection 

Author: Carol Smallwood

Publisher: Poetic Matrix Press, 2018

$17.00 

ISBN: 9780998146980


Reviewed by Michelle Everett Wilbert

Carol Smallwood’s latest volume of poetry, A Matter of Selection, brings into sharp focus her vivid interest in both the natural world and probing observations of the daily—the quotidian mysteries present in any given life when we take time to notice and reflect upon all that we interact with in the course of a day. Ms. Smallwood—a retired librarian and the author of several novels, poetry, children’s books and educational materials for librarians and educators—brings the eye of a scientist, the heart of a mother, and the mind of a mystic to her poems, infusing all of them with a luminous, delicate, yet sturdy sensibility that is a delight to read. The central thesis of this volume seems to be found in the ending of the poem entitled



“There Were Only”:

I lift my face to capture the rain of childhood and failing,

remember the earth is covered mostly with water and we know

less about oceans than the moon—and wonder how much

wonder is lost by knowing. (89)



And to “…wonder how much wonder is lost by knowing” is the right starting point for reading these poems, which I did in short bursts as I went about my day here, attending to the same mundane and life-giving tasks these poems speak to with such gentle precision. There is a curator’s eye to her poems—she’s looking to connect thematic elements in both free form and formal, traditional structures such that individual observations feel grouped as though by hand—one can feel the firmness of a palm and fingers curling around an object and considering where it should be placed to best effect. The four distinct themes explored, Nature, Moments in Time, The Domestic, and Speculations, are introduced in the preface and given an overarching structure in an observation from Octavio Paz: “Poetry is not what words say but what is said between them, that which appears fleetingly in pauses and silences.”

And in this, her poetry takes its shape and form as the interior world is woven with a close observation of nature—of plant, animal and mineral life—as it connects and interacts with the personal and interpersonal, with the contemplation of one’s own existence alongside these many and varied forms of life. In the prologue, the opening poem further settles the thematic focus on the choices—the selections—we make about what we give our attention to and how that shapes an hour, a day, or a life:



We Select

a few—the selections random: a melody, morning fog, a path

knowing with certainty at the time they’ll be ours to the end–

an imprinting sudden, as first love with no thought of aftermath:

a sunset, muffled cry, a Thanksgiving dressing, smile of a friend.

Knowing with certainty at the time they’ll be ours to the end,

They return at unexpected moments, their clarity a surprise:

a sunset, muffled cry, a thanksgiving dressing, smile of a friend

bringing feeling from depths we cannot withhold, disguise.

They return at unexpected moments, their clarity a surprise,

an imprinting sudden as first love with no thought of aftermath

bringing feeling from depth we cannot withhold, disguise:

a few—the selections random: a melody, morning fog, a path.

(7)



These poems are a lovely accompaniment to the daily round; the “poem in the pocket” that offers something to think about while doing tasks that are often done reflexively. The poems belong to the workaday as well as to the esoteric and indeed, they remind us that both coexist symbiotically—much like the Benedictine Rule of “Ora et Labora”—the monastic injunction to “pray and work”–these poems provide a comforting rhythmic undercurrent to the work of hands, hearts and minds. The poetry is deliberate and fluid—the use of repetition ensures that the emotional emphasis is made and made again—a sense of not wanting to forget what matters, as a way, then, of writing a small post-it note into the poem in way that seems so human and relatable—when the repetitions come, one leans in, wanting to pay close attention to what is clearly essential.

This is a fine and riveting work—a volume of poems anyone can appreciate from a literary, emotional and spiritual standpoint. There is no one way to read them, which is probably true of all poetry, but these invite exploration and interpretation in a way that is unusual, especially given the frequent use of traditional forms that can sometimes seem to stifle such reflection. These poems are open-hearted, with a vigorous complexity and generosity of spirit that generates a meditative calm while serving to invigorate the mind while allowing us to “come to our senses” as we read poems that are embodied, human truths and observations that can lead us to recall that we are all one human species, far more alike than different—in these poems, we can find the gentle path towards kinship and connection.



MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Michelle Wilbert is a writer, “poemcatcher” and retired midwife. She works as a music programmer in Ann Arbor, Michigan and lives with her husband on a small homestead near Detroit and together they are the parents of four young adult children. She writes reviews for Mom's Egg Review and this, The New Book Review, thanks her for letting us reprint her review of Poet Carol Smallwood's work. 

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG AND GETTING REVIEWS

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Carol Smallwood's Poetry Gets Star Status from Literary Professionals

In Hubble’s Shadow
Carol Smallwood
Shanti Arts, 2017, Brunswick, Maine
98 pages
$14.95, paperback
Purchase on Amazon


Reviewed by Jennifer L. Dean

    The early 90s were exciting and troubling times—the Berlin wall came down, and the Iraq War began. A Gen Xer, this was the backdrop for my first year of college. When the Hubble Telescope launched into space in early 1990, sending us brilliant images of a world we had heretofore only imagined, it surprised and delighted us, showing us just how small we were. For me, these bright photographs helped to offset the images of the loss of the Challenger, a loss many in my generation still remember as one of our first shared tragedies. In Hubble’s Shadow, a collection of poems by Carol Smallwood, evoked this rush of memories for this reader, simply with its title.

    These memories were not the only ones that flooded my senses as I read Smallwood’s poetry. I delighted in scenes seemingly inspired from my own rural upbringing—from an exploration of spring’s arrival in the changing landscape of a dirt road in the brief “An Ode to Mud,” or the remembrance of summer’s bounty in the even briefer “The Sugar Beet Field.” These poems delight the senses and inspire wonder and laughter. But, darker images reside here, too. Faithless friends and partners in “Dreams of Flying Sestina,” and health concerns in “Live with It” and “Kitty Doesn’t Explore” rear their heads, weaving their way into this tapestry of a life lived in contemplation of our world’s complexity, whether underfoot, overhead, or right in front of us.

Taken as a whole, this collection reflects the full round of life, with all of its questions, beauty, and pain. This volume is accessible to all readers, no matter their knowledge of poetry and poetic devices. Although this collection includes several longer-form works, the majority pull you in with their brevity and knock you out with their depth of feeling and the poet’s ability to bring the reader right to the heart of the story. This collection meets the reader where they are, with just enough detail to inspire the wonder with which the author so clearly perceives the world and her place in it. Or, as Smallwood writes so eloquently in the last line of “Wind in Trees”—“the story lies with the interpreter.”

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jennifer L. Dean is the Dean of University Libraries and Instructional Technology, Instructional Design Studio, at University of Detroit Mercy Libraries. 

OTHER REVIEWS FOR "IN HUBBLE'S SHADOW"
Scarlet Leaf Review
https://www.scarletleafreview.com/nonfiction4
January 15, 2018

Michigan Quarterly Review 
http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2017/05/a-review-of-carol-smallwoods-in-hubbles-shadow/
May 16, 2017

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG AND GETTING REVIEWS

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Veteran Poet Releases New Book from Poetic Matrix Press

  A Matter of Selection

 by Carol Smallwood
Publisher:Poetic Matrix Press (March 5, 2018)

Paperback:120 pages

ISBN-10:0998146986
Available on Amazon 
$17



Carol Smallwood, 
a whole battery of poetry chapbooks to her credit, has written another 
masterpiece.  By that, I don't mean something utterly impossible to
decipher or something that reminds the reader of poets' sonnets from her

11th grade English Literature class.  Many of the poems in Smallwood's 
A Matter of Selection are just as intricate, just as formulated. The thing is, 
you won't notice unless you make them into a puzzle to be unraveled 
or refigured like a Rubic's cube. And why would you want to do that?

Smallwood
writes intricate poems that are easy--even lazy. We read them for the spell
they create, the nostalgia, the wonder. Each is like images in the
opening poem: A melody. Morning fog. A path. 

Smallwood's
repetitive line, " . . . it makes sense to cut up pieces to sew with needle and
thread" in her poem "The Universe" lets her unraveling of the cosmos
be understood with subtle sounds. "Read," "bed," and, yes "dread." You
won't need a reviewer to tell you not to sweat it. You'll just go with the
gentle flow. 

Smallwood's 
A Matter of Selection are poems all the better in the moment. Save
analytics for another time, another chapbook another text. Like a child
listening to her mother's voice, no need to analyze. 

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everything from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion and a whole lot you didn't know including how to use blurbs from reviews to sell books to catalogs. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically! 

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Prolific Reviewer Shares Chapbook of Poetry

Title: Prisms Particles, and Refractions

Author: Carol Smallwood

Publisher: Finishing Line Press, 2017

$18.99 [paper] 108 pp. 

ISNB 978-1635342338

Available on Amazon

Review by Judith Skillman originally for Ragazine

Carol Smallwood’s new collection, Prisms Particles, and Refractions, is at once playful and serious. Her work in this volume ranges from extremely concise poems such as “On Days of Slow Rain” where the speaker becomes “a child again / longing to read / darkened tree bark/like Braille” (53) to the four-page oeuvre written in journal form, “A Late Summer Diary.” The fact that these two poems are neighbors makes the transition between short and long more emphatic, and creates echoes and resonances.

As Smallwood deftly moves through a variety of content and subject matter, the reader gets a sense of an unpredictable world, despite the anchor of a wealth of scientific evidence to the contrary. Facts are posited, yet not accepted as givens. For instance, in “We See,” the persona examines exactly how we do see and absorb light, and questions knowledge imparted during college years. Here, the title becomes the first line: “We See / with rods and cones I learned / in college—it may not be true/today…” (13). As this poem deepens, mirrors, faces, and sacrifice come into play, as well as the automatic adjustment made by the retina from upside down to right side up. This piece is emblematic of Smallwood’s gift—focused examinations that lead to “aha” moments for both writer and reader.

The poems in this book have been published in many journals. Clearly the art of poetry is one Ms. Smallwood has lived and learned. Her forms range from cinquain to villanelle to sestina; she switches from formal to free verse with ease. The myriad references and allusions in these poems draw from philosophy, psychology, physics, metaphysics, history, and literature.

“A Prufrock Measurement” (74) employs playfulness and formal rhyme in order to merge two vastly different subjects—contemporary fast food proliferation with the persona of Eliot’s Prufrock. This willingness to draw from disparate sources creates a prismatic effect: varied and brilliant. In the introduction, Smallwood states her intention to present poems “aimed at capturing…aspects of light…and light as metaphor.” It is this reviewer’s sense that she has succeeded.

Judith Skillman’s recent book is Kafka’s Shadow, Deerbrook Editions. Her work has appeared in LitMag, Shenandoah, Zyzzyva, FIELD, and elsewhere. Awards include an Eric Mathieu King Fund grant from the Academy of American Poets. She is a faculty member at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle, Washington. Visit www.judithskillman.com

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Skillman also reviews for Scarlet Leaf Review, www.scarletleafreview.com and Mom Egg Review, http://momeggreview.com.  

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.