BOOKMONGER
Poets write from life experiences
Two Washington writers find
their voice in retirement
In the lush archipelago that occupies the
mid-section of the Salish Sea, two poets are
producing vibrant work in what we used to
call the golden years of retirement.
In a new poetry collection, “The Lesson
of Plums,” Whidbey Island, Washington,
poet Lois Parker Edstrom deftly mines that
gold — which may be wisdom burnished
by experience.
In a poem called “Kintsugi,” she consid-
ers the Japanese method of repairing cracks
in broken ceramics with seams of gold, a
practice that highlights the “flaws to add
beauty / and, in so doing, the repaired ves-
sel becomes / stronger.”
Similarly, the title poem, a dreamy med-
itation on illness, includes the detail of an
over-ripe plum that bursts “its perfect pur-
ple skin, / and sweetness, an amber rivulet, /
crusts along the gash.”
In “The Geometry of Faith,” Edstrom
invokes “rich tapestries shot / with golden
thread” and dreams of “galvanic charm /
that glides out of sleep into the sunrise / of
consciousness…”
Edstrom’s poems ponder the passage of
time in seasonal delights, beginnings and
endings. The moments are precious, and
the inevitable bittersweet is profound and
sometimes generational.
Along with acknowledgments of tran-
sience, this collection also has odes to stub-
born endurance, as in “The Over Sixty Soft-
ball League.”
In pieces like the delightful “Deep
Thinker,” Edstrom extols the value of nur-
turing a rich inner life. In “The Weight of
Words,” Edstrom focuses on the power of
language.
Not too many miles away on the neigh-
boring Fidalgo Island, Michael Daley also
dedicates himself to poetry. As one of the
co-founders of the seminal Empty Bowl
Press back in the 1970s, Daley has pro-
moted and published other poets for years.
He worked in a Poet-in-the-Schools pro-
gram before becoming a teacher and spend-
ing more than 20 years teaching high school
in Skagit County.
Now retired from teaching, Daley con-
tinues to write his own poems. His fifth
poetry collection, “Born With,” is a com-
pendium of the liveliest dirges you might
14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
‘The Lesson of Plums’ is by Lois Parker
Edstrom.
This Week’s Books
‘Born With’ by Michael Daley
Dos Madres Press — 106 pp — $19
‘The Lesson of Plums’ by Lois Parker
Edstrom
MoonPath Press — 114 pp — $16
ever read, along with other pieces — some-
times raging, sometimes keening with
regret, but always bristling with detail.
With references to mold-breakers such
as photographer Alice Austen, rocker
Jim Morrison and scientist Rachel Car-
son, Daley writes poems about his own
norm-shattering acts and those of his
friends. It begins with the very first poem,
“Among School Children,” and carries
on through poems including “One for the
Road.”
He also tackles other harsh realities.
“Tim Among the Mechanicals” ponders
the death of a student.
The brief poem “Song 49” begins with
wolves but ends with what is too often the
human condition and the haunting line: “no
‘Born With’ is by Michael Daley.
one starving is ever free.”
“A White Confession” is a self-critical
reflection that presents a stinging scenario
involving door-to-door salesmen, wasps
and racism.
Both “The Lesson of Plums” and
“Born With” are worthwhile collections
— each offers different lessons from lived
experience.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd
McMichael, who writes this weekly column
focusing on the books, authors and publish-
ers of the Pacific Northwest. Contact her at
bkmonger@nwlink.com