Karen Shenfeld’s newest collection of poems, To Measure the World, feels like a love letter to life and its inevitable yin and yang, some of which comes with shock,

such as the end of a marriage,

“Be aware of those days when you might neglect the signs – / the gasp of plants, the lake’s too brilliant colour”

which, only on a backward glance reveals the signs of its unravelling.

In ‘Milestones’, a paean to the author’s mother, she compares moments from both their lives,

“This is not a mirage. In time-lapsed frames , / your lines crease my face.
I lean on your cane.” 

I love the use of the word ‘lines’ in this line and how ‘cane’ is not a negative but part of the song.

‘Beach Poem’ is a powerful illustration of subtle differences between siblings that maybe only siblings know.

“I’ll leave for you the fine / white sand maternal as talcum / that dusts your bared soles, / eludes your tightfisted grasp.”

And what a joy to see ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’, which first appeared online at The Litter I See Project. In the context of this collection it takes on a deeper meaning, juxtaposed among the debris of so many and various relationships. The final lines, a gorgeous image:

“Tomorrow, I’ll wrap a potato in / a rocket’s fallen scraps.”

The book reads like an homage to both the welcome and the difficult in life’s journey, a reminder that both are necessary and neither are to be feared,

or taken for granted.

♦