Helen Peterson's Book Review of 92 Rapple Drive

92 Rapple Drive
By Lyn Lifshin
Coatlism Press 2008
ISBN 0980207312
Soft cover perfect bound 75 p.

92 Rapple Drive is a collection of poems about what lies behind the doors of our neighbors. For the most part they flow light and easy, on little cat feet, at times humorous, at times softly weeping. Which only makes the knives of poems such as 113 Rapple, (p.27), about the murder of a young pregnant girl, turn deeper, mean more, in a world where such things have unfortunately become standard on the nightly news. Every poem, regardless of emotion, you feel deeply, as if the neighborhood of Rapple Drive was your own growing up.

The sense of the book feels autobiographical, a notion strengthened by the picture on the back of Ms. Lifshin holding two cats, who could very well be the cats “old enough/ to have a PhD/ if they weren’t cats.” (He Said One Memory or Rapple Drive p.69) This intimate view of family, friends and lovers Ms. Lifshin allows us makes one empathize with the poet, you find yourself time and again whispering as you read, “Yes, I’ve been there too.”

One problem I personally had with the book was the repetitiveness of titles. Thirty five of the poems are entitled 92 Rapple, two are December 22, 2005, 3 On Rapple, 7 Rapple Drives. While I’m sure there was a method in Lyn’s mind for this, it made it very hard to keep track of favorite poems in the book, or to share some of the poems with others. If perhaps Ms. Lifshin had grouped the similarly title poems together in parts and left them untitled, such confusion may have been lessened.

Regardless of the titles, this was a great read, with enough darkness and light to keep it consistently readable all the way through.