Book: A Handmade Museum
Written by Brenda Coultas (Coffee House Press)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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The haunting element that emanates from each page in A Handmade Museum is that of glowering vacancy; from deep Bowery gutters to the gutted hull of Rust Belt prosperity, author Brenda Coultas digs at the hollow places of her landscapes.

Although its horrors are not extolled explicitly, the ghosts of 9/11 are everywhere through Coultas' New York poetry. The darkness of that Tuesday is closely referenced in "Black Boxes," a chillingly scattered account of planes going down and frailty at the hands of disaster. Her street characters below, those she calls "public people," are our eyes, living off the refuse of a culture by digging through dumpsters and taking handouts. By celebrating them Coultas transforms those on the fringe into pulse readers, feeling deep beneath the asphalt for soul. Rather than cast an eye of judgement on those society marginalizes, Coultas imbues them with an archeologist's sense and a fox's cunning. "Some Public Characters" is a rich, detailed description, enlivening the poorer corners of America. It is representative of Coultas' use of frozen moments and visual scenes which catalog the daily endeavors of those frequenting skid row.

Rural Indiana is the author's second landscape, and one she treats with more lyrical ease. Still concerned with the contrast of dark and light, Coultas relaxes her poetic style from the frantic snapshot to the more lazed and idyllic. Grisly is the exposure of innocence in "The Cat Situation" where unwanted farm kittens are disposed of. It is a mournful fate, but not without closing on a tiny glimmer of hope: "Day ended with me, mom and sister sitting outside kitchen door, butterfly landed twice on my finger." Like in "Black Boxes," innocence in "The Cat Situation" is no shelter from the unwitting storms surrounding us.

Before a poet, Coultas wore many hats, from farmer to carny to waitress in a disco ballroom. It is the juxtaposition between experiences as a welder and park ranger however, that seem most valuable in the construction of A Handmade Museum. Where some poets struggle with overlay of the sylvan and the mechanized, Coultas thrives, as adept at ferreting out the beauty in an alley as a stream.

© 2003 - Erick Mertz