An Appreciation of GREENHOUSE by Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet

I like what Bob Hicok says in his blurb on the back cover of Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet’s Greenhouse (Durham, NC: Bull City Press, 2014): “These poems make a basic fact palpable—when a child is born, a mother is born.”

In this collection, winner of the 2014 Frost Place Chapbook Competition, Stonestreet provides an honest look into the life of a mother—our daily frustrations, our special powers, the random grossness of it all.

The very first lines in the book, in the poem “Like That,” offer a view of motherhood that is instantly familiar to this mom, but one like I’ve never seen in a book of poetry:

The first time

                        I leaned over and swept the tip of my smallest fingernail down into

the whorl of your ear (bigger than your elbow­), and you yelped

in violation:

                                                                                    forgive me

it is no longer my ear

                                    (little boat, little shell I carved)

flushing pink, even now, at the embarrassment, the satisfaction—

sliver-moon of yellow wax:

                                                                        tiny victory.

Let’s face it—the parent in the room is easy to spot. When that little person starts to barf, nearly everyone turns away in revulsion. It’s the parent who sweeps in with cupped hands, just as it's the parent who retrieves the wax, who wipes the nose.

Stonestreet gets this, and remarkably, she gets the beauty in this, as her “sliver-moon of yellow wax” suggests. And there is beauty in the humanness children present us with. A friend of mine would frequently bemoan the fact that her husband refused to change diapers. My response? “If you don’t change diapers, you don’t get to change diapers”—meaning that you miss out on the bonding and the intimacy and the humanity of those moments.

I mention this because Stonestreet’s poems resonate so perfectly with my feelings on parenthood. It’s true that she had me at earwax, but she kept me on every page, with every perfect observation. She writes about the too-muchness of parenting so beautifully, as in her poem “Baby/Honey,” about the proscription against feeding honey to infants, and other frightening things we learn online. Stonestreet writes, “when it feels like too much, my friend says, I try to remember to look at their hands”—and I recognize this, a strategy I used, too, gazing in wonder at those two little starfish.

Stonestreet also depicts the crisis of confidence that parents can feel when the main concern of their lives is regarded as trivial by most. It’s a problem writing parents may take more deeply to heart than others. She does this very effectively in “More, Again (Poppies)”:

There is popcorn all over the rug. Do you want

me to tell that story? Because almost guaranteed you will find

it boring

            (domestic) (female) (too much) (too little, too small)

Check one. Move on. Too bad: You will find

pieces for weeks, in the couch, constellation

of explosion, brittle gold against the blue, glint and scatter

visible only in the light of the screen, another night with the same bowl, another way

to make it from 6 to 8, 7 to 9,

the schedules, the negotiation, teeth brushed or un-,

clean sheets, a quick pass over everything

                                                                        good enough: or maybe it’s enough

to make you want a night of your own, everyone

piled cozily in among the crumbs—

When you’re a parent, there is always plenty to read, most of it laden with advice or keening for commiseration. Parent poetry is frequently rewarding to encounter, but it’s hit or miss with me—sometimes too beautiful, sometimes too visceral.

Never have I found a collection so spot-on with my own experiences and feelings. And when a poet captures any part of the human condition with such stunning originality and truth, she deserves to be widely read.

The lesson to the poet-reviewer: Maybe because most of us have a mother, we fail to recognize the weird wisdom of motherhood—the specialized outlook on love. But all of this, even a baby’s earwax on our finger, is the divine stuff of poetry.

Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet’s The Greenhouse, winner of the Frost Place Prize, was published by Bull City Press in 2014; Tulips, Water, Ash, was awarded the 2009 Morse Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Plume, Zyzzyva, The Collagist, Blackbird, and Kenyon Review Online. She writes, edits, and teaches in Oakland, California, where she lives with her husband and son. (www.lisagluskinstonestreet.com)

An Interview with Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet:

1.     What did you want to be when you grew up, and why?

The usual, and obvious, response: writer, from about age seven. Second choice: whoever it is at publishing houses who writes the descriptions on the back covers, because that meant they're paid to read books. (Many years later, I was asked to write the description on the back of my first book. God laughs.)

2.     What is the very best word in this collection? Explain.

Good question. I’m not one of those poets who focus on strange or novel words—I like to find the strangeness in how ordinary words bump up against each other. Words that in some way represent the heart of this book: triage, crucible, rabbithole, thrum. Words most likely to appear in few books of poetry other than this one: milk-dream, doggies, botulism.

3.     Describe your worst poetic habit.

I like to think of bad poetic habits as tics. They show up whenever you get tired or lazy, and they’re hard-wired directly to what makes your poems distinct and yours. I have one where I default to a particular rhythm at the end of a poem: da-dum, da-dum, DUM. I also have a highly functional addiction to punctuation, and occasionally go on a (metaphorical, parenthetical) bender. Also, unhyphenated compounds; see “rabbithole” above. Now you know all my secrets.

4.     It’s time someone put out an anthology of poems about ___. Explain your reasoning.

Punctuation. Not about punctuation per se—but poems that use punctuation to interesting effect. Though poems about punctuation could be good, too. I’d call it Parse Poetica.

5.     It’s your poetic obituary! Sum up your writing life with an essential (past-tense) statement about your poetry. Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet was a poet who …

Was a poet. Who wrote poems. That attempted to convey what it is to think and feel, to inhabit a particular consciousness. OK, which of us does that not describe? I think that’s enough; that's the essential thing for a poem to do.

Would you like to have your book considered for an Appreciation feature? It is eligible if it is no more than two years old or, better yet, forthcoming. You may send finished books or advanced reader copies to me at Karen Craigo, 723 S. McCann Ave., Springfield MO 65804. You may query at karen.craigo@gmail.com.