Please Find Us by Wendy Oleson
Gertrude Press, 2018
Bordering between cynical and realistic, this chapbook takes on grim subjects and turns them into beautiful stories. The opening work of the book, “The Snow Children,” deals with the tragedy of losing a child to a fateful accident, all through the eyes of another child. From the focal character, the reader feels the confusion, fear, and uncertainty that Sarah feels after her classmate is killed. This piece also works to sustain the images of cold and ice, even before the titular snow children appear.
Continuing the theme of chilling beauty, “When a Child Dies (Bear It Away)” is another short prose piece in the book that transforms a terrible subject. In ten lines, one feels the horror of losing a child, but also finds a bit of comfort that the boy with fish-colored eyes died in the lake with other fish. It’s a tragically beautiful piece that exemplifies Oleson’s unique style.
“Sister” is another intriguing piece of prose that caught my attention because of its distinct descriptors. Rather than using straightforward descriptions, Oleson uses concrete nouns to create puzzling metaphors, yet somehow they remain understandable. The speaker has a “thermometer lodged in [her] pancreas,” a “cat’s cradle of scars,” and an assortment of other concrete objects that ail her like piano keys and a starfish. These nouns make her seem like the poor man in the board game Operation. Although we don’t know the names of the sisters, we know that they are drastically different. The speaker wants simple, little-girl things, and the other sister wants to heal the world. The other sister likes to practice on the speaker, which is physically painful because she practices with needles. The other sister wants to be a healer, but all she does is hurt the speaker, both physically and emotionally. When Oleson isn’t using concrete nouns as adjectives, she uses them to paint images. She uses nouns like Lucky Charms, telescope, pencils, straw, and black hole. Her piece is short, to the point, and it does all the work it needs to create drama and interest in a paragraph.
Oleson also explores the more mundane subject of everyday life with two kids in “The Milky Way.” The narrator has a pulsing migraine that the reader almost experiences too due to Oleson’s writing. The children charge the piece with a wild energy that doesn’t settle until the climactic ending. Once in the store, however, the narrator relinquishes control as one son dips his hand into a vat of violet liquid, causing him to finally settle down and revel in the beauty of the hardening wax while his brother looks on in wonder too, thus giving the narrator a well-deserved moment of peace.
Terrifically chaotic, yet still relatable, this chapbook is a breathtaking whirlwind of words to transport any reader to a place of contentment. A must-read for anyone.
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Shelby Marshall is a pharmacy tech by day and a writer by night. She is currently earning her bachelor’s degree in English with emphases in literature and writing at Lee University. She is published as an interviewer at Speaking of Marvels.