The Way to the River

The Way to the River goes down smooth as a well-aged scotch, with subtle complexities that linger long after the first sip and entice you back for another.

-Michael Henry Lee. Internationally published haiku and senryu poet, and Southeast Region Coordinator of the Haiku Society of America

Vivid with nature imagery and music, The Way to the River, Shutta Crum's latest chapbook, leads us through a series of sections that read like mini chapters, each one building upon the next, each poem a jewel of a journey into the past. "Watch for a road/that reaches out to touch your foot/Maybe just a thin thread-an idea of a road" says the poet in moments of insight where "the assault of tides-the battering,/the stretching, has made" her "more seasoned against the storm surge," or when she asks "I threw a rock. Someone bled. You?" She examines her fears, her flaws. What is it that stirs us "there-just there-something/a stealthy movement/a primitive fear nosing in the mud/someone lost at the root?" But we are given hope, "Might I feel the blessings of a dusky sky/and find forgiveness in the ancient light." She even imagines heaven at the end, peppered with a little humor. Her language flows like a river. And we believe her.

-Zilka Joseph. Author of In Our Beautiful Bones, Sparrows and Dust, Sharp Blue Search of Flame

Shutta Crum finds her way to the river, to baptism and redemption. She pulls up the stuff we've discarded-but also a few rainbows-before she floats in her playful heaven. She describes her journey in a language as clear as the water she hopes will carry her and her readers through the river's twists and turns.

-Keith Taylor. A.L. Becker Collegiate Lecturer in English (retired), and Director, Bear River Writers' Conference (retired)