Review by Sarah W. Bartlett
In her debut chapbook, Nina Prater shares a series of simple pleasures, moments, and their simple lessons. Again and again and again. Often, when asked to assemble a collection of poems, I seek the story arc, progression or circle. This collection, by contrast, offers delicious sinking-in, encouraging and supporting in-the-moment lingering. An arc of sheer experience, as if walking alongside the poet through her day. And really, how could one miss this intent, with the wonderful book-end poems of “The Drive to Work” and “Acceptance”? In the former, right out of the gate, we are invited to leave the structured world of numbers and precepts, instead to slow down, take in the scenery. “You’ll be there soon enough,/no need to rush” (2). And in “Acceptance”:
I have been on this earth
forty years now
and I still can’t leave behind
a perfect acorn. (29)
Observing, savoring, interacting, simply enjoying the gifts of life, the worlds beyond and within.
And so we exhale, take the few moments needed to brew a warm cuppa, and settle back in a comfy chair to let Prater’s sensory observations and imagery wash over us as we enter into the captured moments of an otherwise routine day. She helps us slow down to savor small joys along with her.
Equally at home in the external and internal worlds, Prater draws them together through body sensation and emotion. Some poems are exquisite visual vignettes, as in “All the Water that was Rain:” …all is white/gray and brown/…a smudge/of blue…crocuses standing/purple and green…” (3). Or “Baking with my Son” (…our hands and faces covered with flour).(6). Or “And I Smile,” “Quiet circles ripple/where fish kiss the air” (24).
I love “The Teachings of Tea:” ‘you unknot/my morning mind … you remind me:/be generous/with your warmth …’ (5). Prater is equally generous with her own warmth in the pieces about her son – pragmatic, caring and utterly present. “Baking with my Son” brought instant recognition to my heart, as she writes: “You wanted biscuits so here we are,/our hands and faces covered with flour” (6). In “Outside Taliano’s” after she has left a too-loud family gathering with her son:
…We two, mother and child,
bobbed in an eddy
outside the current of conversation…
It’s easier to be alone together … (13).
And the short but powerful “How I Feel Every Night after my Kids Fall Asleep” in which she compares parenting to the slow job of a tree building a single ring per year.
For all its present-moment focus on beauty, joy and gratitude, the collection carries an undertone of apprehension for what is being lost. “The Summer the Chuck-Will’s-Widow Didn’t Come Back”:
Too many
of the wrong
changes keep
happening.
These woods ache,
empty, unraveling (7).
Then there are moments of self-revelation that are sheer delight, “Every Summer” being a prime example.
there should be a zone
for people who fail
to follow
instructions …(9).
And who among us can fail to identify with “A Pause”? “Have I put in four cups/or only three?” (11). Not to mention the all-too-real “Relentless” with its double-punch of beauty and pain. “It is too much and/it is only just enough” (15).
And then there’s “Leap,” a found poem from her 40th birthday greetings and well-wishes. It reads like a friend’s Desiderata, weaving the poet’s own themes of plant, soil, water, personal growth, friendship and wisdom. Like this poem, the entire collection stands as a tribute to growth and maturity, written by one who has both nurtured and been nurtured by time, family and the garden. Lushly like the colorful basil; stoically, like the trees growing despite setbacks; bravely despite pain; delighting in small moments with children or the child like pleasure in licking the jam from the spoon. Success or failure are not the point; rather, experiencing, the ability to take it all in and move forward accordingly. With humor, with wisdom and above all, with joyful gratitude.
Nina Prater is a soil health specialist with the National Center for Appropriate Technology. She, her husband and two children live on a small farm in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. She received her B.A. from William Smith College in English and Environmental Science and her M.S. from the University of Arkansas in Soil Science. Her poems have been published by One Sentence Poems, Buddhist Poetry Review, Literary Mama, and A Revolutionary Press.
Under the Canopy of Unpruned Leaves by Nina Prater
Belle Point Press, Fort Smith, AK, 2023
ISBN 9781960215062
Sarah W. Bartlett is a poet, essayist, writing facilitator and mentor. Her publications include three chapbooks with FinishingLinePress and numerous contributions to journals and anthologies. Unable to retire, she continues to enjoy midwifing others’ words along with her own mixed attempts at gardening. She lives by the ocean with her rescue dog and multiple projects in process.