Worn Thresholds

Sheila Martindale is poetry editor of Canadian Author and Bookman and
the author of No Greater Love.

In this marvelous first collection, Julie Berry tackles such difficult
topics as death, cancer, divorce, suicide, and insanity. Although she
also writes about motherhood and teaching kindergarten, and offers the
occasional love poem, the overall tone of the collection is slightly
menacing, as the poet probes the darker recesses of the human psyche.
There are some terrific lines: “when you’re young the bodies of old
people are like foreign / countries you never expect to visit,” (“so
many more crazy people”). A couple of found poems taken from
historical correspondence add an interesting touch. Berry has a strong
sense of place, and her poems contain many references to her home town
of St. Thomas and the surrounding area in Southwestern Ontario. Meaning
has to be pried out of some of the poems, and others remain totally
obscure—serious drawbacks in an otherwise rich and compelling
collection.