Reply, By Elizabeth Robinson (Pavement
Saw Press, 2011, 32 pages, $7, ISBN: 978-1-886350-21-2)
My Hall of Fame bookcase is filled with consolation prizes. These are
appreciative tokens sent to me by small presses whose contests I haven’t won.
Recently, Pavement Saw Press (Ohio) sent me a package of previous chapbook
contest winners. It was the editor’s way of suggesting I take a little time
away from my own suffering succotash and read someone else’s corn. Soon as I
bent back the cover of Elizabeth Robinson’s Reply I was hooked, and thrilled. Robinson,
a seasoned poet with three collections at large, can write the leg off a dead
mule while most of us—me included—are still trying to feed it a carrot.
