REDUCTION FIRED

A Canadian writer who grew up in rural Ontario offers a volume of nature-themed poetry.

As Yeates Camara explains on the copyright page, this book’s title refers to the process of firing a piece of pottery in low oxygen conditions. This is reflected in her minimalist style of poetry. The first part of this collection, “Winter,” explores nature scenes like estuaries, the silent flight of a bird, and the leaves of a Japanese maple tree. In “Lovely,” the poet compares the sparse beauty of bare ranges in winter to mature women. “Make the Best” features forests of older siblings, clouds of aunts, seas of cousins, and a grandfather sun and grandmother moon. Yeates Camara takes on the perspective of a scarecrow in the eponymous poem. A series of numbered poems about love opens the “Autumn” portion. The “Summer” segment presents sensual poems brimming with desire, fantasies, and passion: “I find / my bones yet longing for your weight.” And the “Spring” section starts with a piece dedicated to a woman who succumbed to bipolar depression, then abruptly ends with a series of biblical-style poems about the speaker’s “master.” The author’s descriptions are vivid. A cormorant is portrayed as “slick and near / soundless.” Pines dance “dramatic / slow ballets” while maples move to “lively jazz.” Yeates Camara’s similes are strong, from “rippling like the elephant’s ear / or ticking tails like bulls” to “A heart peaceful and lively / Like a child running arms full span.” But formatting problems make for an arduous reading experience. There are no page breaks between poems, so multiple pieces are crammed onto each page, eliminating the necessary white space and breathing room between entries. The seemingly indiscriminate line breaks also muddle the meaning of some of the poems. For example, “I realized / today / it wasn’t you that I’ll / always be wanting / more / warmth” is difficult to decipher.

An evocative but cluttered collection by a passionate nature lover.