What do you think?
Rate this book
Oppression
88 pages, Paperback
Published April 21, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
June 23, 2026
Review of Oppression:
Judith Skillman’s seventh book takes us on a journey through the poet’s personal and family experience of oppression using a wide range of metaphors: myth, music, domesticity. Wry humor is skillfully inserted throughout the volume to balance tone—as in “Silver Lining,” where aunts, ‘waltz(ing) nude beneath housedresses / and smoking jackets.’ Several sewing poems demonstrate deft language usage —one, titled “Remnant,” refers to a ‘scrap of memory,’ where her mother is unable ‘to realize the least / of my problems / was being left-handed.’ Old horrors are revisited, ‘coaxed by a bar of soap, they / went naked to shower…’ Newer issues, ‘Now we’re thinking / how to save what’s left of the world.’ Poems dealing with chronic pain are illuminating for those who have been lucky to avoid it. The poet likens it to beak drills, ‘by a woodpecker.’ In the final poem Skillman reflects on the past, ‘winter’s frozen grounds and arguments,’ concluding, ‘I vow once more to let whatever lies beneath a soul trill / summer, summer, summer.’ Read this book! You’ll be enlightened.
Judith Skillman’s seventh book takes us on a journey through the poet’s personal and family experience of oppression using a wide range of metaphors: myth, music, domesticity. Wry humor is skillfully inserted throughout the volume to balance tone—as in “Silver Lining,” where aunts, ‘waltz(ing) nude beneath housedresses / and smoking jackets.’ Several sewing poems demonstrate deft language usage —one, titled “Remnant,” refers to a ‘scrap of memory,’ where her mother is unable ‘to realize the least / of my problems / was being left-handed.’ Old horrors are revisited, ‘coaxed by a bar of soap, they / went naked to shower…’ Newer issues, ‘Now we’re thinking / how to save what’s left of the world.’ Poems dealing with chronic pain are illuminating for those who have been lucky to avoid it. The poet likens it to beak drills, ‘by a woodpecker.’ In the final poem Skillman reflects on the past, ‘winter’s frozen grounds and arguments,’ concluding, ‘I vow once more to let whatever lies beneath a soul trill / summer, summer, summer.’ Read this book! You’ll be enlightened.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review