Shameless

Allison Sivak is a librarian in the Science and Technology Library at
the University of Alberta.

The poems of Marlene Cookshaw are sophisticated, with a rapid and
delicate rhythm. Using somewhat abstract language, Cookshaw is able to
build an emotional and sensual experience, no small feat. The poem
“One Wave” demonstrates this: “One wave / ripples and races, all
froth and circumstance, / ringed curtain released / by an important
muse. Loss is loss: / the death to us of someone too like / the death of
someone. Not the same, / but too like. We keep what we can. / Home is
gesture, repeated.” Here, the poet reminds us that while overused
language can make us immune to meaning, it is the individual meaning,
the meaning to us, that affects us (which is a larger implication for
writing in general). Cookshaw is skilful in her ability to speak beyond
the topic at hand while remaining anchored in the moment.

A recurring theme throughout the book is, in fact, the split between
the body and the spirit. Cookshaw seeks to reconfigure traditional
assumptions that the body is an earthly concern and the spirit a
“higher” one. Her poem “Outdoor Baptism” takes on this dogma,
advising a young girl being baptized to “keep moving. / The river of
your spirit has a current / stronger than you know. Let / go. Keep
going. Be / shameless.” For Cookshaw, it is the physicality of
ourselves and our actions that hold power, as in the poem about her
father, “Elbow on Knee”: “Elbow on knee, that is how he prays, /
drawing all light in the room / to the palm of his hand. When / he
lowers his head, night falls.”

Cookshaw’s poems are dense with metaphor and detail, making quick
rhythmic shifts, and should be read slowly in order to catch on to all
that she is saying. Her connections are simple but unusual, as when she
likens the subdivision and development of rural land to the slow death
of a parent: “Closer to death yesterday than days before. Ungraspable
/ proximity. It subdivides. And, closer still, today” (“The
Field”). A rewarding, thoughtful, powerful collection that retains
accessibility for readers.