A Review of Blue Ribbons at the County Fair, a chapbook by Ellaraine Lockie

Ellaraine Lockie's latest chapbook, Blue Ribbons at the County Fair, is a collection of her first place poems in the many poetry contests in which she has been successful. Her work weaves lyrical alliterative strands of sustained metaphor whether she is narrating stories of childhood and present situations in Montana, or presenting social commentary on the state of the female condition, or describing intense vignettes full of erotic sexual imagery.

The collection begins with her Montana poems. "Godot Goes to Montana" is a portrait of a farmer-father facing circumstantial adversities with hard work, by staying the course, bullshitting with neighbours, and surviving where others have succumbed to accidents and suicide. In other poems we get a nostalgic description of the fall in Montana through a painted canvas of native flora and indigenous fauna. "How to Know a Prairie Poem" best captures her love of this expansive geographical region with "wild roses compose in ripened pinks/ and sunflowers margin the trail" where Garth Brooks competes with meadowlark warble and the cadence of crickets. The piece is sensual with colour as well as sound mingled with the smell of homemade wheat bread, chokecherry jelly, clothes on the line catching " a sea of nature grass and sage scents. You can touch this land and be palpably immersed in its sense of place. In "One for the Montana Road" Ellaraine comments on the darker side of the unbridled independent spirit of Montana. As the title alludes the open road attitude comes with a cost and is commemorated by the "memorials to lives lost". In these Montana poems we get a sense of the loss as time moves on and the busy pace of modern life intrudes. "Lost legacy" uses sustained metaphor, as many of her poems do, to give a sense of memory and loss. It is the metaphor of aging and decay of both humans and the aging of the homestead. Houses have Alzheimers, are abandoned in isolation wards, are now decayed gray matter, places where the tales once told have vanished, where there are memories such as "orphaned cottontails/came home with little girls." But also for the poet, this homestead which is rapidly disappearing from the landscape everywhere in North America, is a "hospice" where one can "come home to heal/from city assaults", a place to come home to "for foster care from a past/fading into oblivion".

Ellaraine moves from her Montana poems to more personal expressions related to many women's experiences. In "Lost in Love" a housewife is trapped in a servitude of expectation, "drunk/with devotion for children", bogged down with debt, fatigued by the expectations of her work, spread thin volunteering, sinking into depression, going on and on ironically lost in love, staring straight ahead.

The art of sustained metaphor in the poem "Imperfection" builds on the imagery of quilting. "Childhood cross stitched/ in a quilt of contradiction". We read of "weaving in and out of the same weft", "undercover destruction", "needled", "security blanket", "threadbare spots". In "Ears Closed, Eyes Open" the poet plays with images of time and the fact that her lover doesn't call even in a modern age where technology leaves no excuses. "Kamasutra Music" is absolutely delightful in its erotic imagery based on the quote "The clitoris is a reed" - Love is a dead Language by Lee Siegal. Many lines are beautiful such as, "I am the saxophone/through which you sire songs". Similarly in "Silk dreams" Ellaraine Lockie says, " I don't want to be a convenient fashion/Hawaiian print worn when/you land in the tropics." The poem uses the imagery of clothes in describing the wants of a relationship. She wants "to be your finest silk". It says it all. In "Defying Gravity" the metaphor of falling, falling in and falling out of love, falling through the cracks, crash landing, defying gravity to "float free and easy" is another example of Ellaraine's abilities to create captivating sustained imagery in her poetry.

Her poems speak of times that have changed, relationships that have been lost, memories that have been tenaciously hoarded. These memories are like flowers pressed between the pages of a book; they are the book lyrically and exquisitely written - a celebration of many years, many blue ribbons won at the county fair.

Ellaraine Lockie writes poetry, nonfiction books and essays. Recently, she has been to Kenya on a poetry fellowship, to Centrum in Port Townsend, WA, for a poetry residency, has received her tenth Pushcart Prize nomination and has won the 2007 Elizabeth Curry Prize from SLAB at the University of Slippery Rock. Forthcoming are a Rooftop Chaplet from Adrienne Lewis’ series and a fifth chapbook, PWJ Publishing.

David Fraser lives in Nanoose Bay, on Vancouver Island. He is the founder and editor of Ascent Aspirations Magazine, http:// www.ascentaspirations.ca, since 1997. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in over 50 journals including Three Candles, Regina Weese, Ardent, Quills and Ygdrasil. He has published a collection of his poetry, Going to the Well (2004), a collection of short fiction, The Dark Side of the Billboard (2006 ) and edited and published the four print issues of Ascent Aspirations Magazine Ascent A second collection of poetry, Running Down the Wind appeared in 2007 David is currently the Federation of BC Writers Regional Director for The Islands Region. His latest passion is developing Nanaimo's newest spoken word series, WordStorm

David Fraser has a BA in English from University of Toronto, and an MEd in adult education from OISE. In Ontario he taught English, Creative Writing Writer's Craft among other subjects at the secondary school level for 30 years. Currently he is a full time writer who also teaches skiing at Mt Washington in the winter.

Email: David Fraser

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