Staircase of Roots by Janet Winans

Staircase of Roots
Janet Winans
Off the Grid Press
ISBN 978-0-9778429-0-30-3
0-9778429-0-3-2
$15.00 2009

Janet Winans opens a window, she gives us glimpses of her observations, provincial observations similar to Chagal’s paintings, the reader can float in and out.

“Balance is immutable. Even-
handedness, punctuality, his lawyer ways.
Brown shoes with brown suit, black with
blue or gray, striped tie symmetrical
boring, I complain. But fair,
no argument. Like truth and time.”

The poems are stable, secure in their presence, yet, can be, “unseated by a smirking boy.” Winans imparts a sense of place without losing what it means to live in a myth or to be relegated to a mythological presence. Winans sees clearly. She writes without having to trick us with sentimentality.

“Our patterns,
chains and circles,
stars, whole constellations.
Muted rose and gray
your shades;
my yellow, red
and blue symmetrical.
As if engraved
the children’s, parents’
births, deaths, marriages
in running stitches,
day, month, year.”

Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor
Wilderness House Literary Review
Reviewer: Ibbetson Street Press