Favorite Auntie Emu by Shoshana J. Coté

Shoshana Cote’s first book of poems, Favorite Auntie Emu, embodies both a diversity of theme and a true consistency of voice.  There is always a story woven between her heart, her throat and a prayer, cloaking layers of meaning: Forced to ruminate silence/among the smooth,/ the liars dressed in silk.  When I read her poems, I feel as if I am sitting next to her through  each stanza.  Her work often surprises me; I like being surprised by what I read — it slows me down, I breathe differently: My favorite door is falling snow;/ my favorite day is equinox.  Something hovers at the edges of her words that pulls us into our own mysteries like the logic of two knives of bent/echo and jasper and rue. Cote also knows her Bible, her Jacob, her Simon, her Elisha, all of whom accompany her on these meditative journeys: I drag my pen across the desert/of this thirst,/the letters stumbling.  Deeply connected to both the earth and to the far horizon, Cote tells us that What bright surround will frame the image/depends on the tree/that grounds you. Beautiful and mysterious work.

-Becky Dennison Sakellariou, author of Earth Listening, What Shall I Cry? and Gathering the Soft.

“My favorite song is yes,” writes Shoshana Cote in this striking debut collection.  And the generosity suggested by that phrase infuses each poem in Favorite Auntie Emu, even when the ache of experience answers the stunned beauty of the natural world with silence, a silence that limns the lines with grace.  “Honesty like this is hard earned, as is the faith that has escorted these lovely poems into the light.”

-James Harms, who chairs the Department of English at West Virginia University and is the author of Comet Scar and the forthcoming The Only Lie Worth Telling: New and Selected Poems (along with several other books of poetry)

Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]