In Terri Kirby Erickson’s second book of poems, Telling Tales of Dusk, she handles a variety of subjects with grace. From the “coal dust fine and black as pulverized midnight” (“County Fair,” p. 3) to the “car [that] disappeared into a patch of fog” (“The Belle of Bourbon Street,” p. 100), the poems are about ordinary subjects — people and memories from her childhood and adult life.

Never frivolous or weak, Erickson’s poems exude a feminine air: Only a woman could write these poems, and there is always the sense of richness that comes from choosing the best details rather than spilling out everything. In some instances, Erickson solidifies what we’ve always known but never put into words. She speaks of children’s cruelty — of being friends with the wrong people — in a way that is painfully familiar.

It was death to be seen
anywhere near her…
worse than wearing
a nightgown to school
or throwing up in class.
(“Fannie,” P. 41)

What woman cannot recall the child — whose name was not always Fannie — whose actions taught us a lesson, when we were mature enough to learn it? Erickson has exposed the snob in us all.

Erickson, who has lived most of her life in North Carolina, writes about her family, including her beloved brother Tommy, who died in 1980. Sibling rivalry enters the picture. In her poem “Sunbath,” she was supposed to stay inside and not look out the window, while her mother took her baby brother into the sun to heal a rash. But she peeks, because “I wasn’t supposed to, which is a powerful incentive.” And doing so, she hears her mother loving the baby like he was the loveliest ever. But Erickson tells us (from a child’s point of view) that he wasn’t the “most beautiful baby/ God ever made.” No, “That would have been me.” (“Sun Bath,” p. 25) Whoa. The honesty hits like Biblical parable.

But Erickson also recalls, with a tenderness akin to that of a mother, the boy with whom she shared her childhood — the one she never thought she’d lose so soon.

I live on and on,
breaking in ways
we never imagined.”
(“Stairway To Heaven,” p. 53)

Erickson write about her mother, her father, and her grandparents. Her grandmother read scripture to her grandfather, who could not read, but preached.

Article Author: Helen Losse

Helen Losse is the author of Better With Friends, published by Rank Stranger Press in 2009 and the Poetry Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Her recent poetry publications include The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Shape of a Box, Distillery and Hobble Creek Review. …

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