SOULSCAPES

Award-winning poet Woodman’s fifth collection contains more than 40 poems that explore such topics as death, rebirth, and nature’s connection with both.

The book fittingly begins with the poem “A Child Asks,” which poses the question, “What is God?” The answer is profound in its simplicity: “I think, not darkly, / God is death. / If ashes are ashes / and dust is dust, / I go underground and rest. / There I am fertilized / by loam and water, / beckoned by life-to-be / When ready, I push up and / bloom color, / never knowing the hue.” “Ghosts of the Dead,” inspired by a painting by Marvin Cone, details spirits in a house appearing through the wallpaper “like a palimpsest” to tell their stories to the new occupants, who discover that they are not demons but “spirits reaching down with hearts / and open arms.” A séance is the setting for the darkly atmospheric “Benjamin,” in which a medium summons the spirit of a Civil War soldier who recalls the moment of his passing. A 4-year-old named Ricky in the uncanny “Past Life” is evidently a reincarnated spirit of a man found dead at a Hollywood movie studio decades earlier: “Mama, I used to be someone else.” Woodman also reflects on the invisible connections between those buried or memorialized in a Washington, D.C., graveyard in “What to Expect at Congressional Cemetery”: “All our arms are linked underground / wrapped around one another, our crooked / feet all know pain and suffering.”

Not all the poems stick to spiritual themes, however. Woodman finds inspiration in a wide array of objects and experiences—including sculptures, songs, and even the late B.B. King’s guitar. Perhaps the most poignant and personal poem is “Fillilulu,” in which the speaker recalls the death of her father and his endearing sense of humor. The speaker examines their connection with the natural world in “Riptide Swimmer,” which places them in the body of a clam: “I am a clam, soft and tender— / amorphic, gathering calcium from shells / of dead relatives in the terrigenous sediment / to build my own protective tent / When safe, I push to shore in the swell and ebb, / mingling with flotsam and seaweed.” In the heart-rending “Orca Ode,” a grieving killer-whale mother who’s lost her newborn calf pushes the body through the water for 17 days before letting it drift away and let it be “reclaimed by the sea’s blue womb.” This collection’s strength is in its loose thematic parameters; the poems are focused but have enough freedom to examine tangential subject matter. The blending of deep, introspective works with more humorous selections keeps the narrative momentum fresh. Arguably, the most memorable line in the entire collection comes from “Excursion (Ars Poetica Odyssey),” in which the speaker walks through a small town in search of inspiration: “I / look around for metaphor, find croissants.”

An introspective and often amusing look at life and death by a visionary writer.