Culverts Beneath the Narrow Road Written by Brenda Schmidt Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $20.00 ISBN 978-1-77187-154-9 How interesting to watch a poet’s repertoire grow and change over the years, and learn what’s freshly inspiring him or her. For some it’s nature, a new relationship, travel, or a loved one’s passing. Trust Creighton, SK poet, visual artist, and naturalist Brenda Schmidt to eschew the usual … this SK Poet Laureate has turned to the lowly culvert for inspiration in her latest title, Culverts Beneath the Narrow Road, and it’s a romp. This handsome collection begins with a short essay that introduces us to the kind of writer Schmidt’s become. While she and her husband are driving down the Saskatchewan map, the poet blurts out questions some may consider inane. But, she writes: “Nothing I say surprises him anymore. He knows better than anyone how difficult writers can be to travel with, due in part, perhaps, to sensory overload, all these places flying by, all these junctions, private roads and keep-out signs, the mind filtering the 100 km/hr stream of information for connections …”. Indeed, connections are key in this book. Always fascinated with culverts, Schmidt’s mined…

Grid by Brenda Schmidt Published by Hagios Press Review by Justin Dittrick $17.95 ISBN 978-192671013-6 There is a moment in Brenda Schmidt’s latest collection of poems, in which the speaker invokes the melodious sing-along of nursery rhyme: Cinderella dressed in white Went downstairs to say goodnight. Made a blunder. Too far under. How many shovels make it right? “None”, the speaker interjects, “The going is slow, conditions poor, traffic/steady. There’s a shovel in every trunk.” In this poem, called “Too Far”, acute observation is combined with commentary that is, at times, humorous and, at other times, distressing. The verses are fragmented, while the images mutate from the wild into the mundane, as though the poem stands interrupted in the collection, as an abandoned nature documentary. Yet, still, it belongs, with a marvelous image of a window onto the world of the poem: “Where in hell/is the scraper? I use my nails./Through the scratch marks/the forest resembles a bit of parsley/left on the cutting board.” That poem feels like a digression, and a telling one. In Grid, moments are approached in their apparent stability only to be swept away in song rife with interruption and fresh stimuli, lending a new perspective….