A Few Words for January

Sheila Martindale is poetry editor of Canadian Author and Bookman and
author of No Greater Love, her sixth collection of poetry.

This is an excellent first book. Leedahl’s poems are spare but
lyrical, with a sureness and strength usually found later in a poet’s
career. She brings an extraordinary touch to ordinary situations. Her
family poems are particularly poignant: a child learns to ride a
bicycle, and the parents have to learn to let him go. A father’s
“large, workman’s hands / fumble with the tiny buckles / on our
daughter’s best white shoes. / Her thin ankle / so safe and lovely /
in your gentle, callused grip.” The title poem is a moving tribute to
a lost fetus.

The poet’s empathy for people is illustrated by a vignette of a
Guatemalan neighbor remembering the son she had to leave behind:
“Silence rides up like a storm takes / her out of my kitchen away to a
memory / A darkness I have never known.”

The final poems in this collection are about the people and poverty of
the Caribbean islands, and we share Leedahl’s sadness at the mutual
dependency of beggar children and tourists. Her assessment of human
nature is wonderfully concise, particularly in the poem “Your Tongue
is a Double-Edged Blade,” and her deft handling of sensitive subjects
indicates a poet who is comfortable with her craft. We shall certainly
be hearing more from this accomplished young poet.