Book of the Week

 The Splash of Easy Laughter (Kelsay Books)

By Shoshauna Shy

  

 Review by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

As soon as I saw the colorful cover of Shoshauna Shy’s poetry book, The Splash of Easy Laughter, with a rainbow striped onesie for a pre-toddler, boys overalls and a woman’s, red tank top hanging on the clothes line with two towels and the wicker laundry basket on the green grass in the back yard I knew I was about to be invited into the lives of a middle class family and I also knew their lives were anything but ordinary.
 
As I thumbed through the table of contents,  I realized I was right when I read tabloid worthy titles such as: “I Stay Overnight When Your Wife’s Away in Town,” “The Photo of Us Before You Told Me You were Leaving,” “Googling the Name of a High School Boyfriend, “Walking through the Church Where My Husband Almost Got Married” and “The Prosecutor Who Will Represent Us.”

Written in her signature style, Shoshauna’s poetry is sassy, scintillating and spins a story that begins before the speaker was born and ends with dropping her son off to college.

Here are some of my favorite poems in the book:

Why I Chose My Parents

Although I liked the way he chided her,
I wasn’t convinced.
So I loitered in their little Illinois kitchen
with its terrycloth toaster cover and silk-
screened curtain, watched them eat
Kelloggs Corn Flakes, bananas
under dollops of sour cream,
Push-Ups on hot days.  She did pliés while
listening to the radio; he sat in the breezeway
sketching with charcoal.

I had started following them at a camp banquet
where he first saw her jitterbugging with
another guy, then tossed twigs at a friend’s
cleavage to make her jealous, way before they
ran into each other on a streetcar, way before
she decided he wasn’t such a jerk, after all,
and packed tuna fish sandwiches for their
bike ride to Euclid Creek.
Had my eye on a couple in Cincinnati too

although next thing I knew, my mom & dad
were posing for a photo, their firstborn son
barely old enough to walk dressed in saddle shoes
and seated plumb between them.

He had a smile wider than Nebraska.
That clinched it for me.

A Cigar for Breakfast

Triple-widowed trouble
down from Toronto
Mother muttered when her brother
drove into town in his boat of a Buick,
shirtsleeves rolled up, hair slicked
and lips working a breakfast cigar.
I wanted to meet this Uncle Red,
the one who couldn’t keep his women
from dying – one struck from behind
on a motorcycle, another gone stiff
on an overdose, the third deflated
by the bite of a cobra – all reputed
to sport sharp tongues and elbows,
have hair that refused to be tamed.
A shy girl of 12, I spooned a bowl
of Rice Krispies while Red tried his best
to get me to banter

and I wondered why this man had a smile
so ready; why his shoulders rocked
with such easy laughter
and more jokes than the uncles
with yards full of flowers,
cakes on their birthdays,
a closet of creased trousers.

Hippie Chick of the ‘60s
Who Went Steady with Nobody

just pledged her troth
to a man bred in Sun Prairie
raised on marking holidays
with coordinated hot dishes
and family dinners around
one table every night

so like an eager little crocus
she balances on high heels
in a Norman Rockwell painting
to sign a marriage license
and say the words my husband
every chance she gets.

What I Like About Living
With the Same Man
For 28 Years

just this afternoon I learned
that one of his favorite memories
is the August he was nine
when his oldest sister invited him
on walks with her in the evenings

    and they always dared each other
    to climb the water tower although
    it was agreed that neither of them
    should have to do it because

of that sound junebugs make
when feet press them against
the ladder rungs

Something I Have to Tell You

        In my house we were raised
       I   to take bad news standing up
            – Monique Gagnon

In our elm-embroidered town
bad news became ours only
as a possibility gently presented –
Grandma Pearl’s dizzy spells,
a teacher leaving mid-semester,
an elopement by a best friend’s
favorite brother.
Debts, cancelled vacations,
uncles’ hospitalizations
were hush-hush and tucked
in tight rooms under stairs.
I never learned to rise tall

    when a police officer appears
    stern and sharp as a headline;
    my son calls from inside
    a crushed kaleidoscope;
    the detective asks do I know
    where my daughter is.
    At the mercy of misfortune
    I ricochet like a wasp
    caught between the no
    of a pair of windows,
    any pause dampened
    by the quease of dread.
    I will never learn how

to take bad news standing up
as if it were a given
and should be expected,
the guest for whom a bed
with fresh sheets is made,
the coat rack left empty,
a fifth of port saved

    although now I accept
    that it knows where I live,
    will make a beeline for me
    without warning.

 After the Near-Miss
with the 40-Ton Semi

Since I am here to watch
a cardinal wing through snow,
its presence as startling as blood
on white sheets,
I’ll salute death

    having felt its breath
    when I momentarily crossed
    the center line
    during a carpool chit-chat
    with three eighth grade girls
    who were other mothers’ daughters.
    I’ll salute the cardinal

now that I know death
can be as big and ordinary
as a JB Hunt truck
hauling Kotex from St. Paul

    and yet small enough to squeeze
    between a consonant and a comma
    in any conversation

To read more about Shoshauna:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/05/storyteller-of-week_19.html

To buy the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Splash-Easy-Laughter-Shoshauna-Shy/dp/1945752610