Grocery List Poems by Rhiannon McGavin

Grocery List Poems an alluring poetic collection by Rhiannon McGavin turns all things to expressiveness; it exalts the charm of that which is most beautiful, and it adds loveliness to that which is most distorted and quells to union under its light yoke all incompatible things. The recurring mention of quotes and poems from eminent poets throughout the book is remarkable.

 

In Libations, the speaker is surrounded by a thousand glasses each containing diverse drinks but the most fascinating is the tap water of different countries. The poem is radiant, joyful and lucid in expression. 

 

Kneeling on the bedroom floor I’m circled

by a thousand glasses full to the lips

with how I’ve taken birth control: hot mulled

cider, pineapple juice, Manischewitz,

the tap waters of various countries

cupped in my hands, sips from what the lovers

are having tonight, dregs of black tea leaves,

spinach smoothies, red slushies, whatever’s

in reach around 9 to swallow the pills

easy and pink as a sunset.

 

#1 a poem from Dream Diary interrogates the landscape of past experiences and blissful imaginations. She reveals her past nostalgic experience when her teeth slid like zippers along my gums, capturing through mosaic winds. 

 

Real as the mosaic wind between screen

and projector is the dream where my first

teeth slid like zippers along my gums, or

the world where boiled eggs charge cameras

so I’m running down market aisles for

“batteries” before the shoot, or me and

the host of my favorite documentary

shtupping in a haunted house.

 

 

In Perennial, the way the poet has compared the draining of blood with the sinking color of a sunset in the very initial is captivating. The expression from the winter rain, front yard, bag of tulip bulbs are the elements that make this poem quite pleasing and become supporting highlights of the ongoing unknown tragedy.

 

Blood down the gray shower drain

like color sunk from a sunset.

 

When the landline shook

with his hot breath behind it

 

I stayed barefoot in the front yard soft

from a winter rain, lifting bags of tulip bulbs

 

not thinking a damn thing,

not me or my hands or the dirt.

 

Rhiannon’s vivid imaginations are stellar and she is capable of expressing them in her style and language flawlessly. Her poems render impressions of the sublimity of nature even one may find her selection of words clothed with picturesqueness and color.

                                                                                                                                                                         ---- Rochak Agarwal