Skinny Dipping

Grace Bavington is a freelance writer in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

This pleasingly designed book of poetry is divided into four sections.

Open Iris, the first and longest section, contains 32 poems. Some of
the best recall the author’s journey to sexual awareness. For example,
in “dictionaries do not define,” the narrator recalls an adolescent
experience—“I was ashamed then to be afraid / (after you’re raped
nothing can scare you, I thought)”—and comes to the realization that
“I am not the only one who did not know / of a language where lesbian
was not a dirty word.”

The poems in Pressure Cooking and Perry’s Cove Revisited are written
from a feminist perspective and are rooted firmly in Newfoundland,
White’s place of origin. Domestic and maternal images predominate. In
“House Mother,” for example, a woman serves homemade bread as daily
communion for her children / She the priest.”

The final section, March Wind, offers tributes to many individuals,
from those close to home to 19th-century authors. The late Tommy Sexton
of Codco fame would have smiled at this part of her tribute to him:
“when in crisis / clean the refrigerator / you would say // I tell you
Tommy that since you have gone / no mould has grown on pancake batter, /
no celery stalk wilted from lack of making sauce.”