Reviewer: Sharon Brunner
Patricia Killelea’s Solace: Poems from the Northwoods” offers a haunting and alluring view of life in the Northwoods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.). The U.P. was and still is considered an immense array of ruggedness and beauty. A black bear can be just around the corner, along with a moose. Vast forests line the roads and cover the landscape. The biggest cities of Marquette, Escanaba, and Sault Ste. Marie in the U.P. pale in comparison to Chicago and New York City. The main characters throughout Killelea’s book were wildlife, lakes, and rivers, the author and the reader. Killelea talked directly to the person reading her delightful book. The people who live in the U.P. have been reminded that everyone shares the domain with various species, including deer. Peaceful deer who graze in a field. Her “The Middle of Nowhere” poem depicted the belief that everywhere was somewhere and has carried an infinite amount of meaning.
The main theme was interpersonal and interspecies relationships. In her poem “Rare Earth,” the cranes teach humans how to love, intertwined with one another. Hawks and wolves would either tear us apart or solemnly watch. The “Bobcat Epiphany and Total Eclipse” provoked an image of sleeping inside a bobcat and how we can abandon an old life that hasn’t worked for us. Killelea compared us to bears and bluegills and how we are hungry for something. Whatever we leave outside is not ours anymore when bears roam our yards. The Lake Sturgeon reminded us of the past when mammoths feasted and now they are fossilizing. The freedom of the Brook Trout and how they never have to report to work. A natural network existed amongst all wildlife as they live in our backyards.
The book that came to mind when reading Killelea’s book was Deborah K. Frontiera’s “The Nature of Life.” Frontiera depicted many aspects of nature. She wrote about finding a feather and what its like to fly above everything and the lives of crows and red foxes as they continue their warnings. A vast difference existed between predators and prey. The 2005 American documentary “Grizzy Man” revealed some similarities to Killelea’s book. This documentary portrayed the life and death of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Anne Huguenard of Kalmar National Park in Alaska. Alaska represented a rugged frontier. 100 hours of video footage shot by Treadwell was associated with his repeated claims of defending the bears from poachers. Bears, as well as other wildlife, have an importance to the survival of all animals and humans.
Killelea mentioned riding an ATV and the sights and experiences of doing so. My husband and I have ridden ATVs all over the forest roads in the U.P., thousands of miles exploring the wilderness. We ran across moose tracks near a river embankment, spotted many deer, observed birds of prey and experienced breathtaking scenery such as lakes and forest domains. Nature has spoken to us in many ways. I love how the robin announces spring. Killelea has successfully brought to life the nuances of nature and how it speaks to us. Most of us have lost someone close to us and can relate to how we were born to mourn and how even money cannot fill the void as she filled her bowl a second time. I have filled my hunger by getting into nature. During the winter, we snowshoe in the forest and when the weather was warmer, we explored many hiking trails. Our dog, happily running free, smelling nature, expressed her natural tendencies.
I recommend Patricia Killelea’s Solace: Poems from the Northwoods” for its enlightening exposure to interspecies relationships, because of its embracing connection to nature, for its restless meditation and for its ecological perspectives. People and animals have gone hungry and seek to fill that empty void. Food insecurities have served as a reality for many. How do our neighborhood foxes find food in the winter? “Hunger has a name I keep trying to forget, has a collar with a tag…” As Killelea portrayed, we can restlessly meditate and struggle with our lives, and want to make changes. Ecology has suffered greatly at the hands of humans. Many water sources are polluted with islands of plastic. Killelea revealed the innocence of nature, completely unaware of its beauty, while humans struggled with the aftermath of progression.
Title: Solace: Poems from the Northwoods
Author: Patricia Killelea
