Bird Salad

Louise E. Allin, a poet and short-story writer, is also an English instructor at Cambrian College.

Woods is a better traditional poet than country lyricist or concrete
poet. In Bird Salad, however, she tries to be all three. First of all,
lack of editorial advice has resulted in her having arranged the poems
in no particular order, with no thematic unity and no direction. That is
not to say that the poetry is without merit. Narrative and description
are her strong points, as with the masterful title poem, “Bird
Salad”: “crisp little morsels, / baked in a succulent glaze / of
brown sugar, soy sauce, and ginger; / tossed with watercress and butter
lettuce” segues to the “timid, hairy, voracious beast . . .
devouring the feast / down to the brittle wishbones.” “The Maniac
Conducts an Orchestra” approaches a novel concept deftly, while
sexuality is well served in “The Male Muse” and “When the Marriage
Ended.” Woods does not fare as well in her concrete poetry; what was
bright for Herbert in “Easter Wings” and reawakened by bp Nichol and
Earl Birney becomes trite in her attempts. Finally, her country-lyricist
aspirations (which inform about a third of the book) include an
invocation to Waylon as well as the usual themes of love or nature:
“Second Time Around” or “Blue Herons.” Should we be in doubt,
she includes the guitar chords. But what might succeed on the car radio
reveals a banality on the page: “Sitting on the front porch on a sunny
afternoon, / summer in a green tide rising high; / blue herons on the
wing, make my heart sing; they’re an omen of good fortune by and
by.” Not to forget “The San Juan Islands Pig War Polka,”
historically amusing, but no “Battle of New Orleans.” Woods might
take the advice: “Do what you do do well, boys.”