The Snow's Music: Poems

The best in different genres elicit common responses from readers. Good mysteries are described as "page turners", good fiction makes people stay up all hours and read, or tell everyone about the great story they've come across. Good poetry, however makes one slow down, savor the moment, read the poem over, and think about how it was crafted and what it said. I took my time with Floyd Skloot's newest, "The Snow's Music". A master of cadence, inner/end rhyme, sentence breaks and also a person who has experienced deep pain and loss, Skloot writes to cherish the moment and honor the senses. Separated into four distinct sections, "The Snow's Music" uses details from Skloot's life, landscapes large and small and mini biographies of famous artists as backdrops. One of the many poems I read over and over is entitled "Paul Signac at Castellane, 1902": In late afternoon heat, Signac takes the curves slowly, coasting when he can, feet at rest on the pedals. Florid light turns the cliff rosy as he swerves to a stop where the Verdon at last comes into sight. It is pure emerald, just as he remembers. The ancient bridge shimmers in the river's reflection. But there is no time for memory. No time even to think. Purple shadows stain the cliff's throat, lap at the bank, and he needs to capture the broken light that brought him to a halt before it vanishes. Signac drops his pack, scrabbles inside for his pad and paint tray. He rushes past two washerwomen, bends to fill his tin cup at the riverbank, and touches by chance the very place where green becomes blue. No matter how quickly he moves, time moves faster. Suddenly he feels the river growing still, then turning back on itself. He has a vision of the cliff crumbling in ebony chunks. There are no people, no scents, no sounds. He falls to his knees, knowing the dark future when he sees it. It all happened so fast. Behind him, the wheels of his bicycle continue to spin. Turning 60 has given Skloot an even greater appreciation for the constant parts of his life - his marriage, the power of nature plentiful and nature remaining, the pockets of community still flourishing under the monotony of globalization, memory that sustains no matter how positive or painful. Skloot is serious yet incredibly humane, his writing vivid and detailed while leaving me pondering the possibilities of my own past and future. He just won the Pacific Northwest Book Award for poetry, a rare and significant honor. This book continues his incredible growth as a writer and poet.