Bewildered Rituals

Anne Burke is the editor of the Prairie Journal Press.

Shreve’s second book follows The Speed of the Wheel Is Up to the
Potter. Editor of the “Women’s Work Writing” issue of Room of
One’s Own, Shreve has had some of her own work poems published in
Paperwork, in More Than Our Jobs, and as a broadsheet.

This poet’s ideological bias is not intrusive in these poems of
everyday life seen through a feminist lens. Her link with Bronwen
Wallace (the book is dedicated to her memory) is strong. She displays
technical proficiency in the haiku, palindrome, triolet, pantoum,
villanelle, and sestina (it says something about literacy when an author
is obliged to identify the forms for a reader). Whether spring cleaning,
celebrating Halloween and Christmas, doing office work, gardening, or
ice-skating, the poet is an acute observer and social commentator.

This collection is politically correct and so much more. It is clear
Shreve loves language (“Learning to Read,” “Writer’s Block,”
“I, Editor”), but she can feel uncomfortable with poetry as a
“straight jacket” (“Excuse”). She acknowledges writing as work,
punning in “Production Lines.”