Poetry Review: Steady by Anne Whitehouse

Anne Whitehouse’s poetry collection, Steady, isn’t a poetry collection. Rather, it isn’t just a poetry collection. I, perhaps naively, set about reading it without first getting a sense of its length or breadth.

The book is divided into four Parts. The first, second and fourth sections, titled Morning Swim, Signs, and Blue respectively, each contain exactly 10 poems. I didn’t notice that at first, but later, when I was done and considering how everything fit together, I wasn’t surprised to see the uniformity of this. I’m sure it’s not coincidence, even if I don’t grok the significance of the number 10, because every piece in every section seems meticulously calculated.

To what end? I’m honestly not certain. But something happened to me through the reading. At one point, while reading Part III — An Art Story, I found myself asking, “What is she doing to me?”

I’m hoping a second reading will help me recognize more clearly the ways in which I was transformed by this incantatory book. So, this is more of an exploration than a review.

Part I — Morning Swim opens with a cinematic tableaux of nature that reminded me of Terence Malick.

The island sparkles in the morning.
Grasses nodding, leaves waving,
All alive and moving, yet still rooted.