cover image Shift

Shift

Jeredith Merrin. University of Chicago Press, $12.5 (86pp) ISBN 978-0-226-52064-3

""Over and over, I've broken my life,/ as a child breaks a toy/ to see how it works...,"" Merrin states in this fine first collection. Self-examination sparks many of the poems here, even when Merrin is writing of family members or her female lover. In ""Big Sister,"" she sketches a portrait of her sister's stormy life and their strained relationship, asking: ""What happened to us,/ what did I do, while/ I was saving myself?"" Merrin remembers her deceased stepfather in ""Blackmail,"" realizing ""...I have not yet let him be/ through with failing to be what I want,/ my father...."" The book's final poems focus on Merrin's lover who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Their ordeal prompts Merrin to note: ""When Chance grips big things, you control the small./ And here's that tired, self-reflexive trope/ the poet shaping print, a little god."" In these quiet, introspective poems, Merrin generously shares what she has learned from her experience. (Sept.)