Wild Canvas by Alison Davis

“One of [Alison’s] most apt tools in these poems is the question mark – her mastery of it makes it as though you can actually feel one in your palm. She helps you behold the question mark’s smooth edge, its fine point, its lone period, both isolated and in community. And then, she holds it to your eye, and uses it as a lens through which to see our world.”

–Phil Kaye

Alison Davis‘ poems in Wild Canvas take us on a trip back to childhood memories, inner conflicts in facing family traumas, struggles as a teacher, and being a woman today. Behind these curtained in the subtle darkness is her deep understanding as a writer with her metaphor of the map: “that’s the kind of paths we chart with words, all unfolding and changing colors and rearranging what is face to face and back to back until . . . write it like that paper is your friend … starting and finishing are closer than they seem.”  This advice I will pack away for those moments when nothing seems to come or when words tumble out formless and dull.

Her words in one poem after the other pour forth images that keep resonating through the hours, bringing comfort and challenging new views. Wild Canvas deserves to be read and savored.

–Betty Staley