NOAH'S BOAT by CB FOLLETT

EILEEN TABIOS Engages

NOAH’S BOAT by CB Follett

(Many Voices Press, Kalispell, Montana, 2016)

An immense love for animals is evident in CB Follett’s latest book, NOAH’S BOAT. As I love animals, too, I delight in how Follett’s poetic skills enhance the love the reader feels for the subject critters. In particular, I appreciate her imagery: I read this and I saw it!

Bolinas Lagoon

Out of marsh grass

seemingly empty

the white shawls

rise into air

and fly

That is just perfectly-pitched!

Her drawing out of various significances also add charisma—my favorite such poem is the slightly ironic (“slightly” because I don’t think irony was as major a point as the poem’s conclusion) “A Bug Encounters Nirvana”:

(click on images to enlarge)

Somewhere in the book, Follett concedes to the flaws of anthropomorphization. But she does it so lightly in "A Cloud of Grasshoppers" and the last stanza is so charming that I, for one, still delighted in this poem:

There are many gems in this book, but I would cite “Noah Throws In the Hammer” as the collection’s tour de force, and not just for explaining why unicorns no longer exist (“distracted by spring / and missed the boat”). The poem provides a needed reminder of human footprints on earth, and how our acts endanger the animals:

Somewhere in the future we’ll give up

cows because with their four legs

and grass-devouring mouths they take up

too much room where we stand

thigh to thigh on barren ground

awaiting the last trumpet, though who

has any breath left to blow it,

with all their lungs sucking in oxygen,

no longer able to give out carbon dioxide

because what, after all, is left to use it.

Love animals? Let’s behave accordingly.  Meanwhile, NOAH’S BOAT provides a satisfying read.

*****

Eileen Tabios does not let her books be reviewed by Galatea Resurrects because she's its editor (the exception would be books that focus on other poets as well).  She is pleased, though, to point you elsewhere to recent reviews of her work: THE CONNOISSEUR OF ALLEYS was reviewed by Joey Madia for New Mystics Reviews, Book Masons and Literary Aficionado; and EXCAVATING THE FILIPINO IN ME was reviewed by Aileen Ibardaloza for "Filipina American Literature: Reading Recommendations" (Barbara Jane Reyes Blog). She released three books and two chaps in 2016, and is scheduled to release at least three publications in 2017. More info at http://eileenrtabios.com