Zoom Rooms: Poems

by Mary Jo Salter Narrated by Hillary Huber, John Lee, Nicholas Guy Smith

Overview

The timeless and timely intersect in poems about our unique historical moment, from the prizewinning poet.

In Zoom Rooms, Mary Jo Salter considers the strangeness of our recent existence, together with the enduring constants in our lives.
 
The title poem, a series of sonnet-sized Zoom meetings-a classroom, a memorial service, an encounter with a new baby in the family-finds humor and pathos in our age of social distancing and technology-induced proximity. Salter shows too how imagination collapses time and space: in “Island Diaries,” the pragmatist Robinson Crusoe meets on the beach a shipwrecked dreamer from an earlier century, Shakespeare's Prospero. Poems that meditate on objects-a silk blouse, a hot water bottle-address the human need to heal and console. Our paradoxically solitary but communal experiences find expression, too, in poems about art, from a Walker Evans photograph to a gilded Giotto altarpiece.
 
In these beautiful new poems, Salter directs us to moments we may otherwise miss, reminding us that alertness is itself a form of gratitude.

Editorial Reviews

MAY 2022 - AudioFile

The title poem in this collection is a series of sonnets on one aspect of life during the pandemic. It’s a good example of how Mary Jo Salter’s work is grounded in the reality of our lives. Another poem, narrated by John Lee and Nicholas Guy Smith, puts Robinson Crusoe and Prospero, from Shakespeare’s TEMPEST, on the same uncharted island, a marvelous act of imagination. The rest of the audiobook is wonderfully evoked by narrator Hillary Huber, although she has a tendency to run over the line breaks, sometimes obscuring Salter’s subtle rhymes and interesting use of received forms. Still, Huber’s delivery is generally well done and serves the poems well. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/21/2022

The timely and delightful ninth collection from Salter (The Surveyors) addresses the bewildering present moment while reminding of past (and future) pleasures. Salter conjures a rich cast of characters and literary allusions, her fine ear on display at every turn. In one poem, she describes Chopin, “The handsomer for your pallor, still you thrill/ To the flood of sun into your sickroom.” Her interest in the ekphrastic form is apparent, as in the poignant “St. Sebastian Interceding for the Plague-Stricken,” which presents haunting echoes of the present day. However, this interest transcends mere artistic translation from one medium to another, and her poems consistently explore what can only be intimated or suggested: “No, what Giotto’s got to do/ is make God in man’s image and/ render His resplendence as// intolerable,” she writes in “Triangle.” Elsewhere, poems focus on moments that, in the context of the pandemic present, take on a new depth and vision. The title poem, “Zoom Rooms,” captures the alienation, strangeness, and unprecedented circumstances of negotiating this pain: “Shocking you died (of ‘something else’), and even/ stranger you’re more present in our grief:/ more three-dimensional than we are now.” Salter’s direct and unfailingly imaginative works make this collection a thorough pleasure. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

"What I so admire about Salter’s work is that directness never comes at the expense of deep thought, nor does a baseline cheerfulness and willingness to be persuaded by life’s pleasure exist without acknowledgement of senselessness and strife . . . Salter captures how our experiences of beauty aren’t quite articulable and implicitly challenge our understanding of time's passing." —Maya C. Popa, Poetry Society of America ("The Poet's Nightstand")

Library Journal

04/01/2022

It would be challenging to find a poetry collection encompassing a wider range of subjects than Salter's latest (following The Surveyors). From the mundane (eggs; Ken dolls; jury duty; Scrabble) to the refined (paintings by Carlo Crivelli and John Singer Sargent; Walker Evans's photography; a mash-up of Robinson Crusoe and The Tempest), Salter enfolds the varied objects of her attention within the lapidary midcentury formalism of polished rhymes and traditional prosody, albeit tempered by the pathos that accompanies age and anticipates the time when "no tip of any tongue,/ will even think of trying/ to call me up from the vast/ data cache of the past:/ the forgotten name is mine") But Salter's wit often lightens the mood, as in the timely title poem: "Self-surveilled, your eye contact on-screen/ seems off. Don't look at people! Focus where/ the tiny camera is that proves you're there." VERDICT Salter's "fine high language of address and dress" may not appeal to everyone, but those who lament the current dearth of old-school verse will find much to admire here.—Fred Muratori

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176006001
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/29/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Title: History comes alive for author during research about Parma

Author: Bob Sandrick

Publisher: Sun News

Date: 4/16/2010

Diana Eid has been proud of Parma her entire life — and she’s never even lived here.

Eid, 32, resides in North Royalton. Before that, she lived in Brook Park. She plans on moving to Middleburg Heights.

So why does Eid like Parma so much?

One big reason is that her father, Rich, has owned Rich’s Mini Mart at York and Pleasant Valley roads in Parma for more than 30 years.

The Eids have lots of friends here and are part of Parma’s history. In fact, Eid is curator of the Parma Area Historical Society.

So when Eid, a freelance writer, decided to author her first book, she thought a history of Parma would be a logical subject.

The result is “Parma,” a fun, easy-reading pictorial history of the city. The book has more than 200 photos and photo captions.

In fact, the pictures are what make the book different than previous Parma histories, which Eid said are heavier on text.

The book was published by Arcadia Publishing last month and is part of Arcadia’s series of books about more than 5,000 communities in the United States.

“Parma” is available at Rich’s Mini Mart, area bookstores like Borders Books & Music and Barnes & Noble and on amazon.com.

Dinky days

The book pinpoints the home of Parma’s first settlers. It was in 1816 that Benajah and Ruth Fay moved to the area that is now Ridge Road and Theota Avenue.

Ruth Fay, president of the PAHS, is a descendent of Benajah Fay, Eid said.

The community, a township at first, was initially called Greenbrier after a thorny shrub that was common in these parts.

In the 1920s, Parma had Dinky trains, or streetcars. They ran on roads like State and Broadview every 30 minutes.

“One person said it reminded them of a circus elephant waddling down the street,” Eid said.

In the mid-1920s, 530,000 people road the Dinky in one year, Eid said.

Eid was surprised to learn, during her research, that Parma Theatre is so old. It opened in 1936, she said.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Parma, by then a city, organized a Parma Day festival every August. It was in the Byers Field-City Hall area, Eid said.

The cover art of “Parma” shows Parma Day in 1936.

During the Cold War in the 1950s, the area where Cuyahoga Community College stands today was a missile site, complete with launchers.

Also, a freeway was originally planned for the Parmatown Mall area but the idea was scrapped after residents protested.

Scanning Parma

It took Eid about 18 months to research and write “Parma.” She started by reading all the Parma histories she could find in local libraries and on the Internet.

Then Eid searched for pictures. She found them at libraries, including the Michael Schwartz Library’s Special Collections at Cleveland State University.

Eid also uncovered pictures at the Parma Area and Parma Heights historical societies and at the homes of private citizens.

One of those citizens was former Parma Mayor James Day.

“A lot of the older residents had stories to tell,” Eid said. “One person led to another person.”

Eid worked at her father’s store while writing the book in his upstairs office. Her mom Susan scanned the pictures.

“Without her, it would have taken double the time,” Eid said.

Eid hopes to write a novel someday. First, however, she might do an Arcadia history of North Royalton.

Eid never thought she would write about history.

“I don’t really read nonfiction,” Eid said. “I didn’t like history in high school but I had the best time doing this.”

Now Eid has a different perspective when she drives through Parma. She sees what’s there and what used to be.

“It’s amazing how everything has changed,” Eid said.

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