Everchild by Gwynn Scheltema is a collection of poems by a practiced writer. It has earned the praise of Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer who writes, “Compelling and heartbreaking. The poems filled with longing, pain, a sensuous observation of a journey looking to repair itself.” Antony Di Nardo says, “[She takes] us into the heartland of Zimbabwe. There’s a lifetime in these poems, stories to be told about people and places and the state of the human heart, whether grieving or skipping to the beat of its own music.” E. Alex Pierce writes “Gwynn Scheltema writes from every aspect of her wide-lived life with every facet of her bold, courageous, female voice.”
Scheltema’s poems explore absence, loss without nostalgia, in their search for home and identity. They ring with authenticity, a truth richly lived. We find ourselves within the Zimbabwean child-heart that remains alive within the woman she has become. Flowing throughout the collection this thread is strong and constant.
The collection is laid out in four sections: Breathe, Ignite, Ebb, and Be. The prologue poem, “Moongate,” establishes what will follow:
she breathes
treads lightly
on what was
what will be—
From the first poem, called “The Old Swing,” the reader is placed in time looking back: “After layers of years / the tall metal swing frame stands / still.” And we understand that a kind of resolution if not acceptance will be found in the poems, despite the pain that inhabits them. The swing’s chains may be too rusty to achieve the sky of childhood, but it will rise in “song-birthed words.”
One of my favourite poems celebrates Nomvula, the woman of the cover art (a painting by the poet) in whose care the child lives:
Whimpers wend like wind spirals
from the child swaddled on her back who whispers
with spirits she does not want to know
a mother gone that no one speaks of
thula, thula, hush hush.
The song, almost anthem, stirs.
Nomvula…
removes the sandals with brass buckles
removes the dress with itchy white lace
gathers her to her breast
skin to skin
white to black
thula, thula, hush hush
ngilapha, I am here.
The mother is absent, an unspoken presence.
In the third section we meet the stepmother, and who wouldn’t think of fairy tales?
the only hug
my mother ever gave me
I was six
…
I wonder
if I had hugged her back—
While I have omitted the crux of the poem, these words convey the sense of longing for what might have been, as well as a lingering self-doubt that haunts the collection. But do not misunderstand; there is no blame of self or other.
The final section, Be, brings poet and reader to what is, the place past memory, a place of now, a place secure. Scheltema writes, “What matters
flies home right now from Saskatoon
warm, wanting flesh inside cold steel
ornery no doubt from his knees cramped to chin
airless heat and stiff sandwiches
but his heart still soft
…
our quiet walk in the blossoming.
While Everchild is a first full-length collection, Gwynn Scheltema’s fiction and poetry have been published in journals, magazines and anthologies. In 2021, Glentula Press released her chapbook, Ten of Diamonds, a “constraint” collection of ten poems. She has earned many accolades over the years, all culminating in this exquisite collection, a collection that at its heart is one poem.
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For more about Everchild and its author, visit https://gwynnscheltema.com/. A Kindle edition is available through Amazon.ca. For the print edition, order from your local independent bookstore, from the publisher or get a signed copy by contacting the author.
Kathryn MacDonald 