Winter Poems
by Jim Wilkerson

In his foreword to Winter Poems, Jim Wilkerson writes, Winter can be such a beautiful season. On several occasions Wallace Stevens affirms Wilkerson’s advocacy. In “The Snowman,” Stevens writes, “To behold the junipers shagged with ice, / The spruces rough in the distant glitter / of the January sun.” In another poem Stevens characterizes winter as “still full of icy shades and shapen snow.” While Stevens’ view of winter is often pejorative (he favors summer as the season in which “the mind lays by its trouble,” the examples cited do sound welcome notes of beauty in a season often associated with death and despair.

Enter Jim Wilkerson on centerstage. Jim’s debut collection is apt to challenge your mind about winter. It certainly has brought a change to this reviewer’s heart. My goal is to feature highlights that make buying a copy of Winter Poems well worth its modest asking price.

First off: The author’s titles speak to me and gain my interest. I live in these titles: “Autumn Says Goodbye,” “Snowbirds,” (I’m a snowbird myself). “Sledding Day,” and “Blizzard,” to cite but a few that drew me in.

The nicely rhymed “A Christmas Toy,” took me back to Christmas joy at eight years old:

          He came in plastic
          And cardboard with graphics

          He rolled down the table
          And everywhere he was able

          He spun out in the bedroom
          Popped wheelies in the bathroom

          He stood up in bed
          Then jumped off my head

          He kept watch by my night stand
          While I dozed off to dreamland

          A friend and protector of mine
          His name was Optimus Prime
 

While my Christmas morning treasures were well short of Optimus Prime, (I got a Roy Rogers cap gun and holster set), the feelings were the same. A gift that was all mine, something I hoped for, realized. I wore that holster set with pride.

While early morning gift-openings are memories to treasure, Wilkerson presents a very adult seasonal dimension in “We’re Going.” The weather is cold and bleak but a friend in the hospital “With cancer / Lurking like a blizzard,” needs pastoral care:

          It was a 40-mile trip
          One way
          Knowing by the time
          You head home
          It will be twice as white
          Twice as slick
          Twice as dangerous

The poem “Still” uses the word still, in skillful repetition to describe the longings of a soldier faraway. The haunting violence of war permeates the poet’s psyche. He thinks of his beloved knowing “that she loves me so / and she’s waiting, still.”

Variety pervades this exquisitely produced volume. Seven winter haiku are salt and peppered throughout”

          #1
          snow angels frozen
          I look where our hands once touched
          just three days ago

          #3
          pup sees first winter
          she doesn’t need to be told
          how to play in snow

          #6
          winter fisherman drills
          at a woman’s frozen heart
          still too thick

Wilkerson’s poems are written primarily in free verse. In addition, there are prose poems, short-syllabic poems, and poems centered on the page. Poems feature a wide range of stanza configurations, as well as a lovely poem which honors Jim’s faith-tradition entitled, “Did You Know,” Here’s an excerpt:

          Unselfish love
          Blood poured out for all
          The red of Christmas.”

Indeed, the deeper meaning of winter is not lost on this budding new talent. Jim Wilkerson has something special when pen and paper meet the seasons of life. Winter Poems is proof-positive of that.


 

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