She Lives There Still

<p><em>She Lives There Still</em> is Mary Leader’s second collection with Shearsman Books. In some senses it is an extension of her previous Shearsman volume <em>Beyond the Fire</em> in that it reinforces what John Muckle in <em>PN Review</em> described as “The overall impression is of a mind that’s acute musical and subtle being brought to bear on everyday life.” In other senses it seeks radically to complicate any concept of the everyday to account for wisdom but be warned it is a peculiar wisdom.  </p><p>    The “she” of the title is from a Mother Goose rhyme but two key series (‘A Warty Chin’ and ‘A Withy Hut’) and between them a key sequence (‘Cornucopia of Arcadia’) could also be called ‘Crone Cards.’ An initiating question asks: “And well should she rule for mythology / versus history? What material / difference is there?” And well seventy pages later questions are still being asked: “Who are we so / physically new?”  </p><p>    Throughout the reader will encounter Leader’s characteristic passions for form and for variety. But the book also affords a tightly organized demonstration of what <em>The New Yorker</em> called Leader’s “quite remarkable sensibility which is one of the most self-possessed in contemporary poetry.</p>