New to Me Wednesday: Peggy Shumaker

In my continuing effort to share a poet each week that is "new to me," I bring you this week's new-to-me poet, Peggy Shumaker.

The poem "Night Dive" came to my attention for the first time recently via Ted Kooser's page, American Life in Poetry. Shumaker lives in Alaska, and that certainly is evident in many of her poems. Like this one for example:

"Night Dive"

Plankton rise toward the full moon

spread thin on Wakaya’s surface.

Manta rays’ great curls of jaw

scoop backward somersaults of ocean

in through painted caves of their mouths, out

through sliced gills. Red sea fans

pulse. The leopard shark

lounges on a smooth ramp of sand,

skin jeweled with small hangers-on.

Pyramid fish point the way to the surface.

Read the rest here.

I think there is a richness to her language and her word choice that is beyond anything I've read recently. Each image is vivid in my mind. Each setting is exquisitely described. As in "The Story of Light..."

Think of the woman who first touched fire

to a hollow stone filled with seal oil,

how she fiddled with fuel and flame

until blue shadows before and after her

filled her house, crowded

the underground, then

fled like sky-captains

chasing the aurora’s whale tale

green beyond the earth’s curve.

I think you see what I mean. Read the rest of the poem here.

If these two were right up your alley, you're all but certain to enjoy the litany-esque qualities of "What to Count On" (not to mention the ironic fact that it's about things you can't count on AND it has a terrific ending), or "Oatmeal" or the equally amazing "The Oldest Music."