Nina Burokas Reviews I Sing the Salmon Home, Poems from Washington State
I Sing the Salmon Home, Poems from Washington State, Edited by Rena Priest
A Review by Nina Burokas
Edited by former Washington State Poet Laureate (2021-2023) Rena Priest, and published by Empty Bowl Press, this anthology is a celebration of the spirit and culture of the Pacific Northwest, expressed in relation to the region’s iconic fish species: the salmon. In his review, contributing poet Rob Lewis refers to the collection as a “gift.” Indeed, it is the gift of over 150 Washington state poets, curated by a Lhaq’temish woman who describes this project as being “called to sacred work.” That spirit resonates throughout this collection like a blessing.
You don’t need to be a salmon aficionado to appreciate this anthology. What drew me in was a love of place, and a curiosity about what makes this bioregion unique. I was not aware that salmon is a keystone species. In her preface, Priest explains “everything relies on [salmon]; if we want to be okay, the salmon must thrive.” What’s at risk? According to the Wild Salmon Center, “From grizzly bears to orca whales, at least 137 different species rely on the marine-rich nutrients that wild salmon provide.” 1
In this collection, the drama of the salmon’s return and the associated cultural, economic, and political dynamics are expressed with wit (Sierra Nelson’s “Self-Portrait as Spawner”), with gratitude, with anger, with action and with hope (Richard Revoyr’s “Future of Hope”). I started this collection with a random choice—Leslie Wharton’s “The Miracle”—that set the tone: both irreverent and reverent:
They say back in the day
you could walk across the river
on the backs of Salmon.
Like Jesus.
They say Jesus walked on water.
Maybe Jesus walked on the backs
of Salmon.
Maybe Salmon are the miracle.
You don’t need to be a salmon aficionado to appreciate this anthology. What drew me in was a love of place, and a curiosity about what makes this bioregion unique.
I Sing the Salmon Home is arranged in eight sections, with titles drawn from a poem in the section; the title of the anthology is a line from Andrew Shattuck McBride’s poem “Winter Run, Whatcom Creek.” The sections loosely reflect aspects of the salmon story, from “Wild, Sacred” to “What We Owe.” Of course, our species are entwined; their story is also our story: a story of becoming, of challenges, of choice. To illustrate, Bethany Reid’s “Wild, Sacred” poem begins “The year feels like one of those big container ships / out at sea, cumbersome, hard to turn.” In her poem, salmon is the color of the wildflower aka weed in her ditch, prompting a digression: “Weren’t we just now speaking / of the sacred in all creation? / In weeds, in us, in the salmon?” In “Ascension, 1983,” Michele Bombardier draws parallels between the two small salmon in one of her paintings and her decades-long relationship. The couple initially “believing in buoyancy,” later acknowledging “the fight against the current,” building to the close:
… At night I dream of fish scales
in sunlight. The glory of a lived life. Water
over rock. . . . I hear nothing
but the roar of the river in my ears.
One of the throughlines that resonates with me is “salmon as teacher,” to quote co-publisher Holly J. Hughes, who wrote the Introduction. The lessons are timeless:
“Salmon says / dream with your eyes open.” —Wren Winfield & Richard Starkey Seaman, “Salmon Says”;
“The journey home lies / in this: the claim / of your one wild heart.” —Jonathan Went, “Sojourn”;
“You are / more than what you’ve lost” —Catherine Kyle in “The Fish Ladder”.
Gabriela Denise Frank’s “(yubəc / chinook)” poem is both grounding and a launch, a recognition of our interdependence and the fierce vulnerability of any significant undertaking. To excerpt: “we are each other’s keystones \ lose one & the bridge collapses” and “seek a savage \ intuition of the self \ let everything happen to you \ beauty & terror ~ keep going ~ no feeling is final.” The fluidity of her poem is not only in word sound and structure but design: each stanza is in the shape of a fish.
There is a visual element to other poems as well—text formatting emphasizing the action/emotion, be it tails slicing through the surface of the water in K’Ehleyr McNulty’s “Sacrifice,” Elaine Miller Bond’s “Untitled” “salmon nurture trees” circular poem, or Tara Mesalik MacMahon’s fluid “Gratitude” poem.
There is a musicality that connect the poems—an effervescence of language and imagery that is a pleasure to experience. Consider these excerpts:
“Sometimes, on the water, rain / swells like applause.” —Jory Mickelson, “Fish School”;
“. . . there is no journey / without the song of home.” —Anne Murphy, “A Rainy Day Is”;
“Salmon are more than a commodity; they are silver-robed ambassadors of home and hope, risk and return.”—Tele Aadsen, “I Whisper Anyway”.
A point Hughes mentions in her Introduction is the cyclical aspect of these poems; there is an ecological wholeness in the individual poems and in the sum. This excerpt from Tegan Keyes’ “The Cycle” illustrates that aspect:
A single thread
in a tapestry weaving though
the orca’s teeth, the heron’s beak,
the eagle’s plunging talons,
the bear’s dark gut,
the tangled roots of cedar and spruce,
and now the glittering moss of microbes
frilling across the tired body
tarnished green and red
which has accomplished
nothing less
than the mending
of the world.
This collection was my initiation into a mystery: the salmon life cycle, inextricably linked to our life, to our experience of this place we call home. It is an invitation to explore what Sheila Sondik refers to in “Salmonology” as “convergent evolution”—a concept thought-provoking in/of itself. Salmon insider or not, what connects us is a love of place and a commitment to ensuring a home (and return home) for future generations. In “Every River,” Carla Shafer paints the picture:
We can change, become protectors,
or we too are condemned to wait in the shallows
where breath is weak and voices silent.…
These poems are not only a celebration of salmon, they are an invocation of the wild and sacred in us. It is a call to appreciation, to witness, to advocate for what we cherish. These stories speak to our journey—as individuals, collectively and as part of a complex ecosystem. May we all have someone to sing us, some way—to paraphrase Jill McCabe Johnson (“Bedded In Wet Rock Like Any Other Roe”)—to river home.
1 https://wildsalmoncenter.org/why-protect-salmon/
Upcoming Readings from
I Sing the Salmon Home
October 28, 7 - 9 pm , Pelican Bay Books, Anacortes
10 Poets read 20 poems from the anthology edited by Rena Priest: Luther Allen, Jane Alynn, Ronda Broatch, Randy Dills, Georgia Johnson, Mary Lynn Lyke, Jory Mickelson, Nancy Pagh, Caitlin Scarano, and Richard Revoyr. Georgia Johnson will host.
South Salish Sea Poets Sing the Salmon Home
Sunday November 5th, 2-3:30 pm ,
Timberland Library, Shelton.
This reading is timed with the return of the chum salmon runs to John's and Kennedy Creek—and there will be an opportunity to view salmon in the creeks before or after the reading. Readers include Katy E. Ellis, Cynthia Jo Pratt, Shelly Kirk-Rudeen, Jeanette Barrecca, Carolyn Maddux, and Ann B. Hursey. Holly J. Hughes will host.
Nina Burokas is a writer and educator in the process of editing her first poetry chapbook. She lives on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where she’s building a writing studio and restoring a woodland prairie on the traditional land of the Chemakum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam and Suquamish People. An adjunct business instructor at Mendocino College in California, Nina has been a contributing author/editor for five digital business titles.
I Sing the Salmon Home, Poems from Washington State
Edited by Rena Priest, (Washington State Poet Laureate 2021-2023)
ISBN 978-1-7370408-9-7
Empty Bowl Press
https://www.emptybowl.org/store/i-sing-the-salmon-home-poems-from-washington-state
2023, paperback, 296 pages, $20.00