Word: schnackenberg
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...there is meaning to be found in this volume, for those who take the time to look. Through her powerful, surprisingly mature poetry, the 39-year-old Schnackenberg has crafted a testimonial to the history and spirit of humankind which stands as both a tribute and a lament...
Although these poems deal with the past, Schnackenberg is not writing about distant textbook history--instead, she probes the connections between the past and the present. For Schnackenberg, poetry itself links...
...title sequence of the book takes the reader through a tour of Dante's tomb. Schnackenberg's meditation on the poet becomes a lament for the loss of a great poetic tradition. The speaker grieves that "no one will ever bother to cast again" the stunning images he created. The tone becomes less pessimistic as Schnackenberg begins to blur the lines between past and present: "There is a flood remnant...As if the Samaritan woman's water jar/Had been hurled against the wall, and was still dripping...Or it may be only a freshly washed floor/ Whose little lakes...
...Schnackenberg moves effortlessly through what she calls "a gilded lapse of time," the symbiotic relationship between history and poetry becomes more apparent. Describing a picture of the prophet Isaiah in Dante's tomb, Schnackenberg writes, "He gazes down from the heights of his poetry...as if his poetry had not drive/ Jesus along the muddy path...
...Schnackenberg introduces various motifs in this first sequence, most notably water and gilt. In these poems water seems to flow back and froth in time, providing a sense of continuity between past and present. Schnackenberg often uses "gilt" or "gilded" to describe the setting of her poetry, or the poetry itself--something beautiful, untouchable, frozen at a particular moment in time. "Gilt" and "guilt" are used in conjunction or even interchangeably. In Schnackenberg's view, poetry is not just a gilded snapshot of an instant in time; it is also somewhat responsible for--guilty of--the unfolding of history...