Priss Campbell'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.
     Her Delicate Shoe, a chapbook by Jane Crown, is both a delightful and moving collection of poems. Jane Crown is editor of the Heavy Bear journal and hosts a highly successful weekly online radio show.
 
For me, an important theme running through this chapbook was one of movement, whether physical or emotional. The poet is not simply an observer of life, but clearly creates her own wake, one set firmly in motion with that 'delicate shoe' in the title.
 
In The Pull of Sound, she says:
 
You are the pull and banter, clear, of rhythm daily
in a brand new soul.
this is what I know is sound in you.
 
And in The Softening of War, on a bus from Houston to Atlanta, a poignant poem where she briefly meets and is attracted to a young military recruit, she tells us:
 
You felt like sandpaper and smelled of blood orange.
 
I don't remember thinking you could die
though, why was that
 
In Timbering Jimmy, one of my personal favorites:
 
You were the boy that chased me
With wild bees in your softened hair of straw
And I was certain you'd learned
How to charm the Ohio river into submission, too
 
Finally, in Aging, we explore that last path, the one we all eventually will travel if we live long enough:
 
My hands are becoming glass antique knobs
Or perhaps more and more as copper pipes
Going directions never intended.
 
This is a book you don't want to miss.