Woodshedding

Poetry. S.E. Venart's honest and lyrical first book entitled WOODSHEDDING shows us a kind of courage that is quotidian. Surviving childhood, surviving failed love, finding solace in the self, and reinvigorating that self with intelligent observation and insight both tactile and abstract; this is the world Venart reveals to us, in all its prescient detail. Venart's poetry reveals itself in the world of mysteries that lies between 'one bright orange next to one bright knife.' Such is the domestic tension she creates, where home is turned inside out so the familiar becomes unfamiliar. Yet the power of her writing shows how simple things, observed with clarity, are lit from within. This is a book to read, then read again: once for the bright orange and once for the bright knife -Anne Simpson.