The Unfolding: Poems by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Admittedly The Unfolding: Poems by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (Wildhouse, 2024) is longer than poetry collections at 128 pages, although this is on trend as poetry titles have been creeping towards longer and shorter in the last several years, landing either at 50-odd pages or 120ish. That said, I have to say I rarely have loved a book as fully or read one as slowly.

It was a gift to read, providing buoyancy in hard days and comfort as well as insight. This surprised me, as I am not usually a fan of poetry of a cosmic or religious bent. Perhaps it works so well because there is a spirit of curiosity and inquiry, humbleness and ache. She is not authoritarian in perspective but reeling and allowing her own vulnerability. There’s an inner work and comfort with self is evident.

Perhaps it works so well because there is a spirit of curiosity and inquiry, humbleness and ache.

Even the introduction alone contains much to reread and profit from. She explains how her book was an answer to the “call to accept our vulnerability. To be curious. To open ourselves to love and to be open to be loved. To dwell more fully in the body. To feel how ephemeral all our epiphanies are. To live into the blank pages of our lives where new poems wait to be written. To praise what is.”

Trommer’s book has both prelude and a postlude, which appeal to me, although some people will give those categorically a pass. I see it as marking it as shared communication rather than a closed box of poetic product. In the postlude she remarks,

“I’m still learning to trust the greater Whole to carry me, to carry us all as we continue to evolve.”

It is her own awareness and cogitation rather than poetry as agitation, trying to be ironic and snappy. There’s an honesty and engagement that reminds me of Thomas Merton.

It is heartening and hard writing. They are poems which reach for the light as the writer finds herself in the unexpected dark place and tries to reconcile the loss of her son and her father with meaning. Her threshold of praise and a “ransacked heart”. In her preface she says,

        “I was immediately struck by the paucity of words for praise in English. 
	As the Benedictine monk and author Brother David Steindl- Rast, OSB, writes, “
	when a word is lacking in a language, there is some in- sight lacking.” […] 
	I wanted nuanced words that honored the grime and grace”

There are a lot of poems with gravitas and with the heart-weight countered by a belief in beauty. It is a poetry about grounding, rather than being levelled, about entering a higher level rather than being interred.

Being sharply present is a good reminder to pause, such as one observes a melted drop clinging to a branch bud, p. 97 “the way afternoon light/gathered inside it.” She speaks methodically and plainly, showing through scenes and metaphor rather than telling. For example, p. 30, “How the Healing Happens”,

Again today
I dig with 
my teaspoon
into the soil
of sorrow.

I appreciate how her line ends can sometimes be as a running summary of the poem and can reinforce the theme, in the previous poem being water and wider, shovel and teaspoon and slow. There is good sound work underpinning her poems to make them work on the level of idea and metaphor and sound.

To be radically present and attentive in quiet moments is one thing, but to be alert in the whirlwind, keeping your humour intact is another level of skill. She calibrates the collection, herself and us with changing density of reveals. She bring herself, humour and all, into “Wordwoman Joins the MCU” (p. 31) she begins, “Long after the Avengers have obliterated Thanos/and Ant Man has saved the Quantum Realm” [fast-forwarding]

“the Russo brothers return to the silver screen 
with their newest hero, WordWoman, disguised
as a middle-aged mother and wife.
She wields a pen. A journal. A library of slender books.
No one would ever suspect she could be a hero”

It is ever so fun. I’d hate to give a spoiler to the ending but a sneak peak more at the spirit…

“Stan Lee shows up as the UPS man,
shocking everyone, and he delivers her a copy
of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. Cut to the next scene, 
she’s in a black pleather bodysuit wearing lots of mascara,
a dark ponytail high on her head streaked with silver.
She’s ripped and ready to do what it takes to make peace.”

Each section is themed and epigraphed as she explains, “in the spirit of one of my favorite books, John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows [by John Koenig, Simon & Schuster, 2021], I blended ancient prefixes and roots to create the kind of layered lexicon I longed for and used these words as the section heads. This being also one of my favourite books, there’s a natural affinity with Trommer’s collection.

To give you an idea of the coinages she meditates on,

SORROM: n. a paradoxical praise for beauty, love, strength and connection that can only emerge as we wrestle with devastation, grief and the worries and pains of daily living; a positive side-effect of surrender and trust in life and death

from sorrow + om (from Hinduism and Buddhism), originally indicating assent or agreement, pronounced [sawr-om]

What we do when we let in the words of others is we let them drive our lungs and gears. By control of her breath and sentence and line, she slows the pace of my mind. For example, p. 4, “Why I Stay Up Late Walking”,

At night I walk. Because 
it is easier then to not
be my story. Easier to be 
more flesh and less brain.

The page long poem concludes with the insight

between earth and sky,
and I am more breath
than blame, more step 
than shame, more now than why.

That puts a finger on how walking relieves the mind, doesn’t it?

I’d recommend for those working through being sent flying by trauma and trying to concentrate on finding their feet.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has been writing and sharing a poem a day since 2006—a practice that especially nourished her after the death of her teenage son in 2021. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils, or a curated version (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available with the Ritual app. She is the author of Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to Deepen Your Writing Practice, and her poetry album, Dark Praise, explores “endarkenment,” available anywhere you listen to music.

She also co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal), and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award.

In January 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, helping others through this platform to explore grief, bereavement, wonder, and love through the voice of poetry. Themes in her writings include parenting, gardening, the natural world, love, thriving and failure, grief, and daily life. She’s been an organic fruit grower, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison.

Her three-word mantra: I’m still learning, and, if limited to one: Adjust.

Publisher: Wildhouse Publishing (October 1, 2024)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 128 pages
ISBN: 9781961741164

Pearl Pirie

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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