Imitation of Life by L. Marie Wood. Falstaff, 2024, pp. 37, pbk $9.99
Review by Sandra J. Lindow
Sharing its title with the 1959 classic film Imitation of Life, Bram Stoker finalist L. Marie Wood’s poems are both incisive and disturbing, describing a darkness that underlies everyday life: a woman searching for a black dress in which to dress her dead daughter for burial, wooden crosses beside a country road, ghostly night visitors, or disembodied voices. Best described as psychological horror, a few of well-chosen words can imply a lifetime of treachery. Consider this haiku:
Pink Nails
Beautiful looking
deeper rotten shell of lies
conniving sweetly
Lovers of ghosts, zombies, and vampires will love her creepy love stories but this one also speaks to nature lovers and environmental activists as well:
Catch 22
Magic clouds
circle the earth
protecting us from
impurities.
As progress abounds
we break down
our semi-porous
immunity.
Despite the word “Magic,” one might argue that this is a fairly accurate albeit metaphoric description of how the earth’s ozone layer works to protect us from radiation. “Storm Warning” suggests an approaching apocalypse that then heralds “a utopia / unparalleled... / for some.” One wonders if utopia becomes possible because humans are gone. Perhaps the cover depicts such a world.
As well as fiction, she has also written screenplays and literary criticism. Her fine ear for language is obvious in “Hot Summer Day,” a poem in dialect which contains these deftly written lines:
Hot summer musta caught ‘im
when he saw her sexy brown
always up on her when she come to town
but now he cain’t catch her
‘cause she won’t never come ‘round
Cool an’ still
her body do lay
after I met her in the park
yesterday
Wood teaches horror at the university level within the context of past and present literary work. Much of her fiction falls within the Afrofuturist definition, but the connection between this book and Imitation of Life (1959) may be through thematic reflection on the evocative title. The movie explores race, class, and gender through a 50’s lens of how we perform who we are: Who we are and who we pretend to be. Wood’s poems depict a contrast between pretending and being. Sometimes the monstrous is part of that context as shown in these lines from the penultimate poem, “What the Water Brings:” “Not me / the me they want / the me they expect / but me evermore. / Through bloodshot eyes and gaping mouth / I change /I see / I be / who I am / naturally / and they cower / they scream / when they see.”
Wood serves as VP of the Horror Writers Association. This is her first poetry collection. You can find out more about her at www.lmariewood.com.
Sandra Lindow has served as Vice President and Acting President of SFPA. Her poetry has been seen in various markets including Asimov’s, Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, Dwarf Stars, and the Rhysling Anthologies. Her spec related editing includes Dwarf Stars, Eye to the Telescope, and most recently the Rhysling winners anthology, Alchemy of Stars II. She lives on a hilltop in Menomonie, Wisconsin where she waits out the pandemic and attempts various strategies to keep varmints from eating her vegetables and perennials.
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