Some poems from The Delmarva Review, Volume 4

I was beamed up into December, somehow. Back in the world of October, I promised to highlight some poems from The Delmarva Review. (The editors seek submissions for Volume 5 through February 2012.)

The DR is a regional review, although the 33 authors in Volume 4 come from eight states, DC, and the Ukraine. I was charmed by the Eastern Shore flavor of this volume and three poems in particular.

Wendy Ingersoll’s portfolio of poems about her dad, who grew up along an Eastern Shore river, ends with a colorful monologue, “Tell Us About the River, Dad,” his description of crabbing and oystering at low tide, when “a northwest wind/ blew the water clear out of the bay…”

The title of Linda Blaskey’s “Two Days at Shipping Creek” engages my interest in our peninsula’s place names. The poet’s emotional turmoil, from the Adirondack chair overlooking Oyster Cove, is just a hair beyond recognition, mysterious–yet palpable. With pleasure I want to reread:

I do not miss my other life yet,
do not mind sleeping alone
on these cool nights. . .

Kathleen Hull’s “The Peeler” observes a blue crab molting and hiding until “the delicate soft crab becomes a steel blue sook.” I mention this poem because I love the word sook.