Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver

I’m grateful to Melissa Lemay, founder of and editor for Collaborature, for inviting me to be the guest judge for the month of April. I read each entry several times and appreciated the opportunity to judge each and every one. I selected an ekphrastic poem “Unstrung” by Mary Stebbins Taitt as the winner.

My Review of “Unstrung”

Before reading my review, please continue with this link to the poem on Collaborature.

https://collaborature.blogspot.com/2025/04/unstrung-mst.html

I found “Unstrung” to be deeply relatable because of my life experience with my father. In fact, the image drew me in immediately as I thought of my father. Connection to the reader is a crucial element of a successful poem.

In “Unstrung”, the art image and poem are mutually haunting. Because each depicts strings and threads crawling from the gut, I think of a gut-wrenching loss. The poem utilizes threads throughout the stanzas, creating a series of images that brings cohesion to the nightmare: “tangled nest, unravels thread by thread, threads…devour him, old tennis racket…comes unstrung”. Even her father’s heels “dig deep grooves”. The “worms..writhe and thrash.” And her father’s soul is a “golden wisp”. 

Also, the dreamer is attached to her father by threads in a way as she is dreaming within a dream. For thirty years, her father haunts her in these reoccurring dreams stretching back in time to his death. Perhaps the dreams keep occurring because her own feelings about her father are complicated and unresolved tangles. 

Finally, I appreciated the skills of the poet. Her use of enjambments is effective. Her stanzas don’t end with periods. She carries the reader smoothly from one stanza to another by dividing the sentences logically to give greater impacts at the ends of a stanza and the beginning of the next. For example, 

……… leaking poison/ his worries seep into….

and

……..do I realize/ I’m still dreaming

“Unstrung” tells a mysterious story. I’ve read it several times. It’s definitely a winner!

*****

While you’re on the site, take a look at other posts on Collaborature. It’s truly a beautiful journal. Comment, like and share!

It was kind of Melissa to post “Meet Our Judge” on Collaborature. Her post includes a poem from my new collection, The Lost Book of Zeroth. Some background on the poem: AI Robot Ameca, smitten with AI Robot Optimus, writes him a love sonnet. Can AI robots feel as sentimental as Elizabeth Barrett Browning much less write a sonnet? Follow this link to find out.

https://collaborature.blogspot.com/2025/04/meet-our-guest-judge-bl.html