The House of the Easily Amused: Poems.

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
author of Calling Texas.

Shelley A. Leedahl writes limpid and subtle lyrics and deploys them in a superbly organized collection. Her poems employ line breaks with great skill, especially when she writes in couplets. Her metaphors are original and convincing, as in “Clouds are ushered across the Wicklow Mountains / like ruffians from a bar.” She veers between travel and contemplation: Mexico, Banff, Scotland, and Ireland get particular attention. Many of the poems are pervaded with what the Japanese haiku poets call sabi, a delight in solitude, while others celebrate friendship. She tells us that when she left the writers’ retreat at Hawthornden Castle, she placed a penny in the fireplace as a proof she was there. These poems lodge in the mind in their unobtrusive way, like coins hidden in a hearth or the heart.