ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995               TAG: 9512050006
SECTION: BOOKS                    PAGE: F-4  EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: BOOK REVIEW 
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY HARRIET LITTLE 

`WHET' IS SHARPENED TO AN EDGE

WHET. By Michael Chitwood. Ohio Review Books. $13.

Michael Chitwood's new book of poems aptly illustrates his title.

Whet, as a noun is that which sharpens, a sharpening; as a verb, to sharpen. His use of words, phrases and imagery indeed sharpens the images themselves, often of simple events and scenes, to the knife-blade that cuts cleanly into one's awareness of emotion and experience.

Any fisherman who has welcomed the surge of bluefish in the surf of North Carolina's Outer Banks relives the experience in "Looking for Blues." "It's about a gullet with fins,/ a rocketing hunger these men are looking for./ Once they're running, you can hook them with/ blown fuses, pig skins, beer bottle caps,/ any glint or snatch of stink./ Once they've gone this far/ anything is like anything else."

Describing a defining moment, metaphor becomes literal in "the Cost of Being Metaphor" about Lazarus' being raised from the dead. "All he wanted to talk about was his comeback./ Had you seen it?/ When did you hear?/ What were you doing when you heard?/ He became only that moment/ with its whiff of the raised body."

In "You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching," Chitwood writes, "If snakes wrote novels,/ metaphor would dart into the sentences,/ tongue out, tang of rat sweat,/ sweet and sour of the grasshopper's tobacco juice."

"Concrete World" is a look at the homely wares for sale in countless roadside stands throughout the South. "Welcome St. Francis and your concrete chickadees,/ Welcome little mothers of Christ, little Marys, marching in a line/ like concrete majorettes./ Welcome elves, gnomes, unicorns, phoenix, brownies, spirits, sprites,/ even the risen Lord, all made concrete./ Souvenirs and Gifts. Welcome. Welcome."

As in his earlier books, Michael Chitwood gives the reader a richness of vision to be read and shared. Indeed, Welcome.

Harriet Little teaches at James River High School.

LENGTH: Short :   44 lines