Shell Games by Noel Sloboda

Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

ISBN 978-1-934513-08-8
sunnyoutside press, 2008

Sloboda’s poems are a bit of an enigma; not unlike those of Collins or Kooser, they make use of simple language to deliver surprisingly intricate and profound treatments of everyday existence. They are not quite nature poems, although “Shell Games,” “Winter of the Campaign,” “Fallen,” and several others have a distinctly rural sensibility; the sense of a physical topography, a terrain that is being actively explored, is palpable in this impressive first collection.

One of Sloboda’s more notable pieces, the title poem “Shell Games,” exemplifies this subtle connection between the quotidian and the transcendent through an attempt to save a turtle struck by a car:

Sealed in duct tape,
shell shards held
together for eight days;
then something escaped
from a chink
we didn’t see. You
buried the little guy
next morning
in a battered Keds box,
probably for the best.
You couldn’t have done
more even if he had
been your own.

The “something... we didn’t see” that escapes is emblematic of the “something” behind Sloboda’s poems that drives the reader to consider the world as Sloboda has considered it, to turn his pages backwards and forwards, to look up each reference or allusion, from Shakespeare to Star Wars, that he makes. This invisible, intangible quality permeates Shell Games and successfully binds together its otherwise somewhat disparate subjects.

Sloboda’s gift is particularly evident in one of the earliest poems, “Repairs”; while he considers his father-in-law’s point that “The new grade should / be better for sluicing off the rain,” he is more consumed with “wondering / how the new roof will change / the rolling song of rainfall.” This simultaneous acknowledgement of daily life qua daily life and as something more penetrating is a hallmark of Sloboda’s work and, hopefully, a sign of new, wider landscapes to survey in future collections.

Visit sunnyoutside press on the web at www.sunnyoutside.com.

Prick of the Spindle Poetry Editor Eric Weinstein recently graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with an AB in English and Philosophy. His writing has previously appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including The Archive,Wheelhouse Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, and Rainy Day. His poetry hasbeen nominated for inclusion in Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the SmallPresses (2009). A native of New Hampshire, he currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com