Rooted: poems by Tricia Snell

How not to judge a book by its cover when production values of Spot of Poetry are so high? Heavy, cream, textured cover stock with French flaps and full colour and inside-cover graphics, designed by Berdene Owen. The interior paper is a decent weight and embossed linen pattern in cream to give it an elegant feel. It is made by the Little Books Collective, a community-building micropress that focuses on chapbooks and collaborative publishing, based on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Tricia Snell, Alice Burdick and Ben Gallagher are the workshop facilitators.

The title of the chapbook comes from the idea of being rooted in the world, in the epigraph of Rilke, “If we surrender to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees”. This opens to poems that are grounded in a past worth holding, pivotal viscerally felt moments, whether empathizing with a horse thrashing to break out of her paddock where:

We eye the gate
too timid
to open it 

(“Livid”, p. 14-15),

or walking through the Humane Society with heart’s door throw open against the wall (“Rescue”).

The eleven poems have at their crux humans and the natural world as they wend over fields, watching birds, in childhood memories of winter and the complexity of femininity ideas imposed on women so much a person would rather be a tree:

sixty feet tall
without my shoes
and can easily reach
across the garden wall 

(p. 8)

The poems are gently nostalgic, mentioning shootings, but in contrast to the soft-focus of suburban type life of “always longing for something … like a thirst,/ to hold that beauty/ that once lived in me, / whole.”

A beautiful object for the hand from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, you can see the lineup at the Spot of Poetry website. They mostly can only be sourced from the author through the website and some through a Lunenburg bookstore, Block Shop Books. Tricia Snell can be found at her website.

Tricia Snell recently came home after a long spell away. Currently working on a novel, she has published a nonfiction book, essays, and stories. A recent story was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize and published in Room magazine. She teaches writing and literature from her studio in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Publisher: Little Books Collective (June 2023)

Pearl Pirie

Website

Pearl Pirie's WriteBulb is now available at the Apple store. A prompt app for iOS 15 and up gives writing achievement badges. Pirie’s 4th poetry collection was footlights (Radiant Press, 2020). rain’s small gestures(Apt 9 Press, 2021), minimalist poems, won the 2022 Nelson Ball Prize. Forthcoming chapbooks from Catkin Press and Turret House. Find more at www.pearlpirie.com or at patreon.com/pearlpiriepoet