California Poetry

Like postcards, poems aim to be evocative and efficient. Hannah Dow blends both modes several times in her new book, “Rosarium.”

“Postcard From the Salton Sea” caught my attention because it reports from such a beleaguered California location. If you don’t know much about the Salton Sea, it’s an inland lake in the Sonoran Desert, deep in the state’s southeastern region. Most of the water is gone, and what remains is so salinated it hardly sustains life.

Dow captures the haunted nature of the lake and imagines its (unlikely) renewal. The repeated phrase “If the rain came now,” creates a lyrical, somewhat somber resonance even though the poem very much looks like postcard prose. “Rosarium” is Hannah Dow’s first book. Originally from New Hampshire, she now lives in Costa Mesa (Orange County). If the rain came now, it would flood the cobblestone patterns of dirt where the lake should be. And the ground would not know what to do, unable to bury all this water inside itself. If the rain came now, dead fish would blanket its surface as the lake rebuilt itself. And the fish would be washed clean of the dust they have worn like a shroud for months. If the rain came now, it would entomb the canoe that rests in the middle of the lake. And the bodies in the canoe would appear to earthmovers of the next drought. “Postcard From the Salton Sea” is from “Rosarium” © 2019 by Hannah Dow. The poem appears with the permission of Acre Books. All rights reserved.

David Roderick is the author of the poetry collections “Blue Colonial” and “The Americans.” He is co-founder of Left Margin Lit: A Home for the Literary Arts, in Berkeley.

Kristin Teston