Silk Routes of the Body

Melanie Marttila is a Sudbury-based freelance writer and writing
consultant.

Judith Krause’s third collection of poetry is divided into four
sections, each exploring a different theme.

Part 1 treats various encounters with illness, injury, and death. In
“Folk Cure for Melanoma,” a fruit might have the power “to save
you from your skin.” The miraculously twice-spared Swiss girl of
“Ars Moriendi” now faces “an ordinary death”; her mother hopes
“eventually, she will get this [death] right.” For Krause, the
things sometimes said or thought in moments of crisis reveal the extent
to which our lives can unravel.

Dogs provide the theme for Part 2, with each poem illustrating a
different kind of “Life History through Dogs.” The touching
relationship between a stargazer and his dog, the lonely death of a
Boston Terrier, the tragic and accidental crushing of a teacup
Chihuahua—these events are neither explained nor excused. Anarchic
hands and even whole people are mistaken for or transformed into dogs,
revealing how closely related we may be to our canine companions.

Passion informs Part 3. Here, everything from insects to salt, from a
wild cat to an old brooch, can be the occasion for exploring the erotic
moment, or the equally as terrifying love between family members.
Memories, personal touchstones, and icons draw readers into the poetic
moment, allowing them to taste simultaneously the salt and the sour, the
bitter and the sweet.

Part 4 addresses survival—survival of illness, death, loss of love,
or any number of personal tragedies, great or small. The poet tries to
figure out how happiness can be wrenched from sorrow, how work can be a
prayer, how love can be found in the heart of anger.

Engaging and thoughtful, Krause’s poetry shies away from nothing.
Silk Routes of the Body has much to recommend it to any library.