Terpstra is that rare poet who weaves narrative and lyric so seamlessly, the reader falls under a powerful spell. Songs from the Summer Kitchen may take just a few hours or a few days to read, but the poems inhabit a space far beyond the pages on which they are printed. “Sisters, you know how it is:/sleeping face-to-face on the floor in the girls’ room…”

There is something so exalted and, at times, so arresting at work in this chapbook. Spanning years and continents, Terpstra’s work focuses sharply on a world that can be small as a dandelion and as endless as the horizon. Rendered with care, this collection is a reverie.

Dara-Lyn Shrager, author of Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee

Songs from the Summer Kitchen displays the high-craft of a thoughtful poet — excellent images and metaphors …bodies gliding down sidewalks/were fish swimming…. Terpstra takes you to desert and ocean and all the time-trenched places in-between.

Poetic skill only the beginning, I hope you also find the epiphany I experienced as a man. Poetry fosters such insight, permitting the intimate sensual and intimate virtual to mix. Inside Songs, women of many cultures share both faults and blessings — the wisdom of women.

In the end, Terpstra herself describes how this work affects the reader: …how empty we arrive/upon this beach, /how quickly we fill/so full of ocean.

Dennis Maulsby, author of Near Death/Near Life

Review

There is so much unexpected in Dawn Terpstra's Songs from the Summer Kitchen. The photo on the cover gave me a hint, and the first (titular) poem was absolutely everything the cover and title had led me to believe she would deliver. The surprise was the startling journey she took me on afterward.

Sometimes poets put a phenomenal poem on page one, then let up the pressure. Yet the eerie, twilit images ("blessed by something that is not God") from "Ruby's last dress"—page 2!—left me vibrating and shaken. It is almost as overcast as the first poem is sunny.

This happens repeatedly in Songs. "Violet Waits at Base Camp" is at first as rosy and hopeful as its rainbow-painted coffee-shop window before it takes a sideways lurch, then careens down like an emotional avalanche. Terpstra is a masterful composer of this sort of experience, showing us the patient faces and easy practices of her often-female subjects and speakers, then suddenly exposing an underlying pain or power.

The capacity of women—including the author—to shape, reshape, and draw power toward and from their relationships is cleanly divulged, whether the women are simply driving to an exhibition ("Maribel"), watching a bird build a nest ("misaligned"), or swimming with a sister ("self-portrait underwater").

The overall effect is sun-soaked, memory-rich, saltwater and sage-scented; a radiant and unpredictable pilgrimage you'll want to take again.

Lisa Creech Bledsoe, author of Appalachian Ground and Wolf Laundry

Review

Terpstra's poems conjure places unfamiliar to me. She delivers them, not as a tourist, nor as a native, but as one who has found home, if only for a short time. Yet the places have become part of her. She is specific about colors and vegetation, the every-day and the tragic. I realized that much of each poem was descriptive, the choice of elements described at times surprising and always detailed. The choices defined the emotional content for me. A beautiful book.

Pamela Hobart Carter, author of Her Imaginary Museum and Held Together with Tape and Glue

Review

Once again, I must caution readers to not mistake my taking on poetry books for review. Please don’t send me requests for reviews on poetry. I do not read poetry as a general rule.

However…once in a great while, I will if I believe the book is a worthwhile read, if the poems are enjoyable. These are rare occasions. While I listen to poetry nearly every week in one of my critique groups, I do not buy nor do I read poetry. This is one of the few exceptions.

Plot

We sing the gossip like plumeria breezes early in the morning. In Dawn Terpstra’s first chapbook, she explores a world of women who view their circumstances through an outsider’s lens. She is the sister on the edge of the bench in the summer kitchen, painting toenails with the women in her family. The summer kitchen is a safe space where sisters pass time sharing stories about what it means to be a woman from anywhere. Inside a collective of women’s experience, women negotiate agency between borders of culture and generation. “In dreams, water runs downhill, disappears down a sandy arroyo, blessed by something that is not God. But a magician with a bottle of Milagro-” Poems place the reader inside the minds and hearts of those who love, who suffer loss and shame, who cope with dissonance through delusion and fantasy, those who seek self in moments of clarity, flashes of joy and pride. These sisters share their stories, creating an intimate truth that strays from belief outside the screen door of the summer kitchen.

My Analysis

I’ve read and listened to this author’s poetry for a few years. I don’t read poetry, and haven’t studied the ‘structure’ of a poem. However, I know what I like.

While the title suggests a bit of home-life poetry, there is so much more here. Dawn takes the reader to places most of us only imagine. She transports the reader to these locales and shows the magic, the beauty (sorry, I can’t think of another word to put here), and drives the imagery deep inside. The heart and the mind.

Imagery. There is so much in these poems, I had to read most two times—a few I had to read multiple times—to really see what’s being shown. A single pass does not satisfy. Some may think that poems should be read and understood the first time through. I disagree. While many poems I read/listen to I can figure out meaning the first time, Dawn’s poems pull you in. They force you to step back and think, “Wait a minute. There’s something more here. Something deeper. Something really good. I’ll read it again to see if I can find it.” Maybe a second pass will do…but maybe not.

Don’t misunderstand me. Reading a story is fine. Read it once, move on to the next story. With Dawn’s poems, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t just move from one poem to the next, turn the page, and read on. I had to read it again. And another time, before I had a taste of what she envisioned. If I read these in another year, I’d find something else.

Not just imagery. She uses the five senses and even a bit more. Colors, tastes, sounds, touch…it’s all there.

It’s a short book, but definitely not a quick read. In fact I read only a few pages at a time before I had to stop. Not because I didn’t like the poems, but because I was overwhelmed with the imagery. I needed a break before I continued.

And that’s okay. Reading poetry, and Terpstra’s book is a fine example, takes time, takes concentration…takes a person willing to let the author drive the imagination to the point that it can’t take anymore…until the next time.

Because of this, the enjoyment factor stayed high. Therefore,

My Rank: Red Belt

Stephen Brayton, is author of five novels, Alpha, Beta, Delta, New Year Gone, and Night Shadows