Hugh Fox's Review of "Her Delicate Shoe"

Her Delicate Shoe
By Jane Crown
2009; 32pp; Pa; Polymer Grove Press,
POB 3, Roseville, CA 95661.
$7.00.
     A lot of raw reality here under the artful overcoating which turns Crown’s work into a scrumptious blend of high art and back alley toughness: “I tried to focus on it/the light that scattered round/my vulva as you exiled your body into me/and the birds of steel flew and spotlighted/our backs and asses glistening in the/Katrina backwash of a home leftover.”  (“The Pier,” p.5).
     Delicacy, beauty, a sense of high ladylikeness (I wanted to create the word “Señoraness, but....), so you can really empathize and identify with Crown on all life-levels from beginnings to ends, and it’s interesting how she’s able to somehow elevate the most pristine everydayness into artfulness: “My aging body possesses/Varicose legs of an uncharming blue/That oft steps cautiously/With fluttering thigh/Thiner channels and longer passages/Present trouble for my/Alignment.”  (“Aging,” p.31).
     And if the street/bed toughness and high art aren’t enough, there’s another scholarly element in Crown’s personality that thrusts her into the transcendental ranks of world-thought: “The Jainists/posess these living flaws you see,//They sweep their paths with horsehair/brushes or brooms/to make sure not an iota of/life be slain...//They continue to shrink in number ever since inception,//Respecting life,/as they have.” (“The Fatalists,” p.16). Welcome to ancient India!A fascinating, multi-faceted poet soaked in history, full of all sorts of unexpected depths and heights, Crown is one of those immortals twittering toward permanent recognition in an otherwise somewhat tattered and faltering world.