Sally KeithRiver House: Poems

"I had been skeptical, but it was beautiful," says Sally Keith, which could apply to this book, which builds on small references, seemingly banal observations, and an emotionally muted tone. The "River House" is an eulogy that does not have the heights of emotion. At first Keith's poems seem like writing a daybook in verse, but soon you feel the observations and lack sneak up on you. The banal observations become a shield against loss, and then an acceptance of the loss.These sixty-three poems seem simple--there isn't a lot of obvious linguistic gymnastics and allusion are direct and rarely figurative. The poet's banalities and references can become rhythmic and sometimes reads like a fugue. There are displacements in time hidden in otherwise direct language, and there is clear mourning there as well. Starting with the description of the River House, a house on stilts, protected from the waters, the extended metaphor holds the book together. There is a distance from the topic that is slight but the stilts are definitely there.Circularity, repetition, and returning play key roles in book: Routines, how those routines break, and then returning to them changed take up an large focus on the book. The house versus the river, and river being change and time. These metaphors are ancient and could be cliched, but Keith doesn't let them become so. Familiarity and habit channel our grief but doesn't unto it. Even repetition of form in the book-- similar line lengths, stanza lengths, etc.--and slight ways the form breaks build on this theme.The surface of the poems serving almost as litotes for the adjustment and emotional drain the loss of Keith's mother pushed her into. I was skeptical, but in the end, it was beautiful and sad.

Wow. Keith accomplishes that talking space, the space of continual talking that you think is going to lead you to resolution, or you're assured won't actually lead you to resolution, because that would mean the end of the talking space, but it is so sad talking, and searching for what to say in the talking that will finally resolve the tragedy behind the talking. Talking, Sally Keith. Talking, Sally Keith. It's too much to know all along that there is no mother there for her to talk to, because you get the sense that this poet wants to be talking with knowledge that she could go afterward to her mother and say something kind or loving. These poems aren't what she would say to her mother. This is the talking that she is doing while her mother is at home, and the poet is in the world thinking of her mother, and feeling the presence of her mother. Or, perhaps, it's just knowing the mother exists would make saying all this feel better. But, as reader, you know the writer knows her speaking only fills in the silence. And, within silence, is knowledge of death, and bewilderment at where the mother has gone.