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144 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW Uke smooth canoes packed soft with families. A church bell strides through the green perfume of locust trees and toUs its thankfulness. The mourning dove, to her astonishment, blunders upon a distant call in answer. Amen. Peter Oresick Kathleen Wiegner. FreewayDriving. Brooklyn: Hanging Loose, 1981. 69pp. $4.00 Victor Contoski said of Kathleen Wiegner's first book, Encounters (Membrane Press, 1972), "The world of Kathleen Wiegner is a fairy tale world—not that it is unreal but that it is marvelous, unbelievably beautiful, and unbelievably cruel. . . ." (New Magazine). This is stiU true of her third book, Freeway Driving (Hanging Loose Press, 1981). Freeway Driving contains many of the same elements as Encounters—it makes a fantastic world out of such unlikely material as the Los Angeles freeway—but Uke Encounters and her second book, Country Western Breakdown (The Crossing Press, 1974), it remains fixed in the reality ofcity Ufe. City life, as Wiegner portrays it, is not that dull, mechanistic existence so often opposed to the richness ofcountry Ufe; rather, it is magical, fuU ofsigns and symbols. For example, in the title poem, "Freeway Driving," she describes- a miraculous event that occurs between two exits on the Los Angeles freeway. The event starts with a rainstorm, then "The mountains begin to sUde/ into the garbage trucks/ crawling up Mulholland Drive" until the driver has a mystical experience: "Lightning breaks/ in the rear view mirror,/ Saul on the road to Damascus." , This mingling'of images from the New Testament and the city is typical of the way Wiegner converts her life into something a little strange, fantastic. She has just apparently experienced a religious conversion, a moment of religious insight comparable to Saul's, though her experience is free of any particular orthodoxy. Religion, in its least organized form, is the subject of several poems in this and Wiegner's earlier book. In Country Western Breakdown, one of my favorite poems is "For the Woman Who Asked Me if I Believe in God and if I Pray," which contains the lines, ... I have taught my daughter that God is everywhere even when she laughs saying, "in my toast," taking a big bite. . . . One of the most wonderful moments in the new book occurs when Wiegner writes about prayer in "Naming the Unnameable:" God, I am in despair here by the swimming pool where all other strangers have become friends playing bridge____ I sit with my hands folded. May I pray in a bikini? In this world, the answer is clearly yes. Although the number of poems concerning with religion is small, they are remarkably appealing— free of the cute or melodramatic personification of God that sometimes characterizes contemporary religious poetry, as in the case of, say, Anne Sexton. Some of Wiegner's best poems spring from her relationship with her daughter Christine. Like the poems about God, these poems refuse to sentimentalize; although they often contain regret, they shun self-pity. One of the best is "Making These Choices," in which the poet attempts to explain her divorce to her daughter. She wryly says. 145 REVIEWS Selling the furniture was just the beginning. I gave away your house, Your father, your rabbit, dragged you around Uke that old rummage sale bear you dragged around the summer we got divorced. But she realizes the need to explain in adult, and so is the poem, the vehicle she has created: "In the end it is a toy/ you are too young for." Wiegner shows in her poetry a sorrow for the promises she finds herself forced to break, the lies she has had to teU, the disruption she has caused. At the same time, she recognizes the primacy of the adult, the inevitability of children's Uves being molded by their parents. One of my favorite poems is from the point ofview of the adult daughter, still beingjostled by her disappointed mother: You used to look so nice, she says, almost crying as she says it, You should have a new coat at least. As in the fairy tale world, relationships are tenuous, whether between mothers and daughters, lovers, or with one's self. A number of poems in...

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