Skaidrite Stelzer, Digging a Moose from the Snow. Finishing Line Press, 2021. $14.99 U.S. 38 pages, paperback. ISBN: 978-1646624553
Reviewed by Tija Spitsberg
In the poetry collection Digging a Moose from the Snow by Skaidrite Stelzer, the speaker ultimately draws the conclusion that
we are all animals participating in shaping our shared landscape and seeking
solutions to secure our survival. The opening poem serves as a preamble
introducing the speaker of the poems by recalling a warning she receives from
the “Pirushke lady” – a wise old sage who predicts the “fatal decline, spiraling
toward death...In a few years your arches will fall/your feet grow hooved/toes
become turtles/your husband will leave.”
What follows is a series of poems, each
describing the trajectory from birth to death, linking our demise to the universal
experience of all creatures; but there are glimmers of hope, especially for our
children who approach the world with optimism. In “Cicada Shells,” “the
granddaughters string them into long necklaces before they learn their fear of
bugs, predicting the inevitable end of innocence.” The closing poem, “The First
to Die,” suggests that we are losing the battle, yet also clings to possible
redemption in the next generation, our children. “The forest now a pile of
tender sticks/All color lost, white bone beneath the sea/Still children look
for stars within the rifts/The first to die will be the coral reef.” This,
however, is undercut by the final line, dictated by its form, the Villanelle,
where the repetition of the final line is determined by its form: “The first to
die will be the coral reef.”
Death comes to all of us, but we struggle to
evade and delay its reality. In the title poem “Digging a moose from the snow” the
struggle for survival is explored through the personification of the moose who
“now knows we are animal/surviving/all of us/as best we can.” A “moose in a
snowbank” emerges as the central symbol for our struggle to survive. This image
solidifies the position the speaker of the poem takes in regard to the human
condition: “the world is cruel/a world that will kill us (it’s true.)” But
like the moose, “we must move against the snow banks/dig deeper than we
believe…surviving all of us as best we can.”
These poems contemplate death and loss, as
well as displacement and the salvation and pain of memory. Stelzer nimbly
navigates this terrain as she explores these challenges through the use of
fantasy, humor and sudden bursts of surrealism to deftly explore the natural
world.
Copyright©2021 by Tija Spitsberg All
Rights Reserved.
