Whistler of Petty Crimes: Poems
by Eileen ike West
Far from expounding on ordinary life, Whistler of Petty Crimes introduces a time and circumstance that blows the lid off the commonly-held belief today mimics yesterday. Oh no. Not entirely.
Who knew fifty years ago—
Ø Contempt for stray dogs and/or pine walls might lead to a lifelong litany of prejudices
Ø Worse, psychological mayhem raged among people with peculiar thoughts and/or behaviors because therapists were yet to assign ailments their proper alphabet letters (i-e A-D-H-D, P-T-S-D, e-t-c, e-t-c)
Ø Still worse, everywhere in the Black Hills of South Dakota, tourists were allowed to stick hands out of open car windows and feed bananas to bears roaming wild
Ø In the same vein, during sub-zero winters, generations of Minnesota parents stunned their cabin-fevered children into dead silence by piling them in cars, taking off across the nearest ice-covered lake, and spinning their vehicles around—literally, ad nauseum
Ø Worst of all, the emergency call number 9-1-1 universally relied on (in the US) today did not exist, adding havoc to all crises listed above
If perplexities pique your interest, dear reader, settle on Whistler of Petty Crimes and travel the whimsical wormholes of West’s matchless storytelling mind.
5 out of 5 fairies
This was an amazing, evocative poetry collection. West does an amazing job of bringing images and feeling and fleeting impressions to life through each poem. I felt like I was being taken on a journey, experiencing someone’s life through the shade of their own memories, but in a much more emotional way than I would in a memoir. One of my favorite series of poems within the collection was the Modern His Way trio, although I liked them all in their own ways. If you enjoy poetry that leads you down a path, you’re sure to love this collection as much as I did!
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
An advocate for environmentally-safe prose of all shapes and sizes, Eileen ‘ike’ West, MA, is an international teacher and free-range writer featured in Susan Smit’s Wise Women (NL 2003) and Susan Taylor’s Sexual Radiance (US 1998). Across decades, West’s essays liberally sprinkle magazines and other publications in the US, UK, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Greece, and the Netherlands. A list of articles is available at ikewest.com. West’s first poetry collection, Whistler of Petty Crimes, and earlier novels, Away from Hannah’s Castle (US/NL 2006) and Another Giant World (UK 2018) are available through Amazon. Currently she keeps busy harvesting more oh-so poetic stories, and cobbling together her next volume, mostly about midlife misdemeanors. For now, West’s favorite petty crime: whistling out of tune.
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