Sumac’s Red Arms

Sumac’s Red Arms
by Karen Shklanka
Published by Coteau Books
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$16.95 ISBN 978-1-55050-402-6

Must one live an interesting life in order to write interesting poetry? I would argue that no, this is not a requirement, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The Vancouver poet, family physician, world traveler, and flamenco dancer, Karen Shklanka, draws from her own rich experience and has much to tell in her first book of poetry, “Sumac’s Red Arms”. She sets many of her often surprising poems against the various locales she’s called home: Moose Factory, Ontario; Sydney, Australia; Los Angeles; Houston; Salt Spring Island; and Regina.

The first poems reveal scenarios from the poet’s medical work in a northern Ontario community. We meet “James,” who “woke bleeding on a battlefield of empties\and limp friends” and has “been sitting all morning with a gun to his head”. And we’re introduced to “The Girl From Attawapiskat”: “She spits on me as they wheel her out on the stretcher”. These are no-nonsense
anecdotes, and Shklanka adopts a journalistic style to convey them, thus ensuring that sentimentality does not cloud the telling.

In the book’s radically different second section, “The Scent of Cloves,” readers are treated to disparate sensory delights-including many culinary ones-from settings including Mexico and Spain. In “Hands and Stories,” Shklanka writes: “We go inside and make guacamole,\black beans, salad with these strange fruits.\You don’t know a papaya\is a yellow football full of seed\like round black beads”. This poem ends with the delightfully exotic: “Purple and orange crabs fall out of the drainpipes.”

The third section, “Vocabulary: A Tango,” is almost self-explanatory. Here Shklanka shifts poetic gears, offering minimalist, lyrical poems that dance across the page.

She returns to medical matters in “Cradle,” but manages a certain elegance in her descriptions concerning “The Hidden Lives of Bones”: “oh beautiful clavicle, oh\easily broken\one, darling\how easily you repair\yourself”. Another poem in this section, “How They Divide,” is a back and forth poem about a splitting couple, and what each takes with them, ie: “He keeps the antique table without any chairs,” and “She keeps the prayer wheel\they bought on the road to Pokhara, which was pitted with meteor holes\and mating dogs”. I particularly like this piece for its appealing combination of personal and travel details.

In the final section, “The Under wings of Clouds,” romantic relationships take centre stage, and the book closes with a poem that leaves us considering endings, and beginnings.

When she’s at her best, Shklanka paints with words. Consider these lines: “An old man takes his cat for a ride\in a yellow crate with wheels” (from “El Viejo”); a flamenco dancer’s hands “curl upward like smoke from\burning leaves on a still day” (from “Waiting”); “a spoonbill’s wings flash pink in the long sun\as it strikes through the salt marsh looking” (from “Winter Day, Texas Coast”); and ” A purple jellyfish lies\like a placenta on\the beach” (from “Readiness”).

To read Shklanka’s “Sumac’s Red Arms” is to walk-and dance!-in some of the interesting shoes (like the pair gracing the book’s cover) that this multi-faceted poet has worn.

Published in:  on 30 September 2009 at 10:00 am Leave a Comment
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A Rose Grows

“A Rose Grows: Fighting Cancer, Finding Me”
By Olga Stefaniuk
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing
Review by Andréa Ledding
$16.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-33-0

This memoir starts off by bringing the reader to small town prairie life in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Growing up in the village of Hubbard, the author lives and works at the general store with her parents and siblings. The reader has an enjoyable look into her childhood and family life in a then-bustling railroad village – a glimpse into a bygone era where ‘fast food’ was the barrel of pickled herrings in the front of the general store, and Christmas oranges were mainly prized because their wrappings meant softer paper in the outhouse. After this introduction, the story follows her journey to Saskatoon, career, marriage, two children – and cancer. When Stefaniuk finds a lump in her breast at the age of 42, the reader shares her journey of survival, loss, perseverance, and determination to reach out to others in the midst of her own struggle to not only survive – but thrive.

Along the way, Stefaniuk starts local cancer support groups, brings cancer retreats to the province, and makes friends wherever she goes. She carries the reader on an intimate journey into what living with cancer for 23 years is like – and the attitude which has doubtless helped her come this far. Always positive but gentle and honest, she doesn’t gloss over difficulties – attending a wedding after her mastectomy, she and her husband try everything including fishing weights wrapped in tissue to keep the lighter prosthetic from riding up, and joke about hollowing out a coconut shell. Stefaniuk also shares regrets – reconstructive surgery might have made things easier. She wonders if the decision not to breast-feed her infant daughters when formula was so in vogue might have contributed to the invasive breast cancer.

Beyond breast cancer, Stefaniuk goes through other cancers, but never stops sharing what she’s learned along the way. Despite her shyness of public speaking, she addresses WestJet employees, a class of university medical students, large gatherings, or other cancer patients. As one friend told her, “Cancer was the change that made the real Olga stand up.”

The book is broken into short sections – usually two to five pages – making it easy to read. Stefaniuk’s journey inspires while giving both other cancer patients and their loved ones a clear picture of the experience. She shares not only procedures, but her own emotions and thoughts. At one point she writes, “Although many cancer patients do not want to talk about their experiences, I do. I feel I have to.” This sense of obligation and care is the driving force behind her book, and her personality is on each page – the reader leaves feeling he or she has made a new and intimate friend.

This book is available at your local bookstore, or visit www.skbooks.com

Published in:  on 23 September 2009 at 11:30 am Leave a Comment
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Something to Hang On To

“Something to Hang On To”
By Beverly Brenna
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Judith Silverthorne
Price $12.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-57-7

Beverley Brenna’s new collection of short stories for teens is poignant and powerful. Each one is told in a clear, positive and simple way, so that “Something to Hang On To” will appeal to many readers. Her characters are both quirky and honest as they go through tough times. They all seem to overcome their obstacles by capturing lasting resolutions from within.

Sometimes the stories are based on real life incidents and sometimes they are slightly autobiographical. Often they provide insights into a variety of serious life issues, such as loss, family violence, autism, Down’s Syndrome, or marginalization. She explores these adversities from a variety of angles. There are also some that are more-light hearted stories like the one about getting a toe caught in a vacuum cleaner, or another about parachuting from a plane for the first time.

The award-winning author uses both first person and third person narrations in this compelling collection. As an added feature, there’s also an intriguing one-act play. This is her first and it’s an existential one, which captures the absurd, echoing sentiments many teens will identify with. They also offer effective problem solving to overcome the seemingly impossible.

Although these stories were written over a span of twenty years, their themes and issues are relevant in today’s world, and will continue to be into the future. Filled with pathos and zany humour, there is also warmth and immediacy as the reader is drawn into the lives of the characters. Whether about a boogie-boarding Australian, a young gifted Cree girl, a young boy with autism, or someone longing for acceptance, all have important messages about courage and finding your way. Sometimes distressing and sometimes tender, all touch the reader, underlining the belief that when things get tough, ‘we all need something to hang on to.’

The characters in this book provide encouraging examples for all teens to look within for resolve and to reach out to others in need. They are also a great read for anyone!

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR VISIT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 16 September 2009 at 12:34 pm Leave a Comment
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The Way It Was: A Story of My Life

“The Way It Was A Story of My Life”
By Leola Edna May Harron
Self-Published
Reviewed by Gail Jansen
Price $12.95

Anyone who’s ever felt over-worked and underpaid should take a moment to live life in the past lane, through Leola Edna May Harron’s book “The Way it Was A Story of My Life.”

Writing about the joys and hardships faced growing up as a prairie pioneer in the early 1900’s Harron’s simple style at times seems overwrought with seemingly inconsequential detail, yet as the book unfolds, each detail works to paint for the reader, a realistic portrait of what life on the prairies truly was about.

Instead of a glorified portrait of a life with daring adventures, Harron’s clear and vivid memories paint quite a different picture full of hard work, tragedy and a certain dogged determinism needed to survive the harsh Saskatchewan landscape. Any simple pleasures that Harron did experience were remembered as sweet moments that needed to be savoured and treasured for the brief respite from real life that they gave.

Raised by her maternal grandparents after the death of her parents before she was barely four years old, Harron grew up impoverished yet loved by her stoic and hard working grandparents and a ragtag assortment of extended family.

After spending the majority of her youth working alongside her sister and grandmother running a Regina boarding house, her grandmother’s poor health and even poorer finances,required a move that started Harron on a path that took her across the province working from farm to farm as a cook, cleaner, and menial labourer.

With descriptions of what are now historic buildings, events and locations it is a story that laid the foundation for Harron’s own life enabling her to not only overcome the many obstacles that were laid before her, but to grow, thrive and persevere as she married, had children and later was widowed at total of five times.

For older readers of Harron’s tale this memoir will spark some memories of their own lives lived, and take them back to a day when the world was simpler, yet not easier than it is today. For the younger reader it is a chance to glimpse a world that will seem like fiction. Far beyond the usual “I walked five miles to school up hill each way,” tales drummed into them by well-meaning elders, Harron’s story will give youth a true glimpse into the lives led by their ancestors and may even act as a wake-up call to appreciate all it is that they have today.

Originally written simply as a story for her descendants “so that they might know a little of my background and what life was like for me,” Harron’s tale of “joy and contentment” and “sorrow and despair” can teach those who read it to appreciate their lives, and to savour those small moments of pleasure, however fleeting they may be.

While the story of her life may not have boasted world-renowned accomplishments, or award winning moments, her life was and continues to be lived to the fullest, appreciating a common theme that can be seen throughout the story: family, home, love and friendships.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR VISIT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 9 September 2009 at 11:37 am Leave a Comment
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Tuckahoe Slidebottle

“Tuckahoe Slidebottle”
by Neil McKinnon
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$18.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-07-02

“The town itself is homeless. It lies on the prairie like a drunk on a sidewalk.”

The town is Tuckahoe, a fictional SK community invented by gifted writer Neil McKinnon, and on the strength of these first two sentences, I knew I was going to enjoy his short fiction collection “Tuckahoe Slidebottle”. McKinnon renders a cast of characters simultaneously outrageous and credible; if Tuckahoe were on a map, readers would be flocking there.

I can’t help thinking that the writer wore a smile while penning most of these twenty stories. First, let’s look at the town itself. Tuckahoe’s a place where “Dried potholes slam your teeth as you drive.” There’s the inevitable coffee row, called “The Jury” (“five or six tobacco chewers and sunflower-seed-spitters who met every day to pass judgement on the private lives of others”). And there are wild characters like one-eyed Old Alex, who took off his black eye patch Saturdays and “used a silver dollar to cover the hole where his left eye was supposed to be,” because he believed in dressing up on Saturday nights.

Reverend Davies is the minister at Tuckahoe’s Singing Evangelist Holy Gospel Church; his young wife Abigail is anything but devout. The teen narrator of “Going Blind in Tuckahoe” says: “When she crossed her legs her skirt hiked up until I could see the tops of her nylons. It got me going so much I couldn’t get up when the service was over.”

Constable Dave is the town’s cop three days a week. “The other days he pumps gas down at Mac’s Garage. The town hasn’t got around to buying him a uniform, so he puts on his gas jockey outfit for both jobs.”

It’s impossible not to adore these characters and envy the author’s talent. McKinnon could publish a book of his similes alone: “Keeping something private was like using your hands to scoop water into a hot radiator,” he writes. One character “spoke slow and deliberate, like someone trying to explain nuclear physics to a group of morons,” and stranger Morton Goldsak “strode onto Main Street, walking boldly in well-shined shoes like a banker on a mission of foreclosure.” The man had “a stook of red hair that stood straight up and waved in the breeze like a nervous campfire.”

Outlandish business schemes are common in Tuckahoe. Goldsak, a down-on-his-luck gambler, arrives to start a newspaper, “The Tuckahoe Wind Breaker.” (Ha!) One local eccentric “invested all his money in a scheme to crossbreed a mink and a kangaroo so as to produce a fur coat with pockets.”

The first four stories are narrated by “Obbie” Robertson, whose AWOL cousin stirs up trouble with other men’s wives. Many of these stories concern love, but romance in Tuckahoe might just involve “[holding] the barbed wire for each other.” Time and again, McKinnon’s characters demonstrate that love is “elegant in dreams but awkward in practice.”

This book’s difficult to put down, easy to recommend. You will laugh out loud.

Published in:  on 2 September 2009 at 11:33 am Leave a Comment
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