Overview

Infused with images of the natural world, Sheltered in Place is a braid of three poetic sequences. The first focuses on a grown child's relationship with an aging parent living in a memory ward; the second focuses on a parent marking the growth of a child from her birth through her teen years; the third sequence, which gives the collection its title, examines life in the early days of the pandemic when shutdowns were imposed in the US. Including traditional and prose poems, the collection has been praised for its vivid descriptions and its explorations of memory and faith.

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9781646629268

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I want to believe despite what you have become is a prayer that echoes through this fine collection of moving, richly layered poems, which take us inside Saginaw's beautiful and ugly places, and the poet's own questions about faith and life. In this rustbelt town where broken glass / falls like seeds on sidewalks, we go on a pilgrimage through the birth of the poet's child, Lent, Easter, the seasons, aging and loss, the pandemic, and then the empty nest, even as he decides not to destroy the finch nest on his door, leaving the shelter in place. Vivid images of nature, flowers, birds, gardens and gardening abound, woven in with Christian symbolism, a desire for rebirth, second chances. I pray to the God of rescue; / I must stay in place to enter the light. With Giroux we enter that space, and we too, hope for grace.-Zilka Joseph, author of Sparrows and Dust, Sharp Blue Search of Flame, What Dread, and Lands I Live In Sheltered in Place is a beautifully braided exploration of memory (or the loss of), quarantine (or resilience), and place (historical shelters ). Giroux interlaces the natural world, the made world, and the spirit world, crafting each strand around the passing of time into non-time where we are suspended and ultimately sheltered. These poems and prose-poems, gently embroidered with human failings and tenderness, never lose their heart-felt love of the world and its inhabitants. A chapbook shouldn't be this all-encompassing, but it is. Oh, it is.-Anne-Marie Oomen has authored or edited seven books of poetry or nonfiction, most recently ELEMENTAL: A Collection of Michigan Nonfiction, a Michigan Notable Book

"""I want to believe despite what you have become"" is a prayer that echoes through this fine collection of moving, richly layered poems, which take us inside Saginaw's beautiful and ugly places, and the poet's own questions about faith and life. ""In this rustbelt town where broken glass / falls like seeds on sidewalks,"" we go on a pilgrimage through the birth of the poet's child, Lent, Easter, the seasons, aging and loss, the pandemic, and then the empty nest, even as he decides not to destroy the finch nest on his door, leaving the ""shelter in place."" Vivid images of nature, flowers, birds, gardens and gardening abound, woven in with Christian symbolism, a desire for rebirth, second chances. ""I pray to the God of rescue; / I must stay in place to enter the light."" With Giroux we enter that space, and we too, hope for grace.-Zilka Joseph, author of Sparrows and Dust, Sharp Blue Search of Flame, What Dread, and Lands I Live In Sheltered in Place is a beautifully braided exploration of memory (or the loss of), quarantine (or resilience), and place (historical ""shelters""). Giroux interlaces the natural world, the made world, and the spirit world, crafting each strand around the passing of time into non-time where we are suspended and ultimately sheltered. These poems and prose-poems, gently embroidered with human failings and tenderness, never lose their heart-felt love of the world and its inhabitants. A chapbook shouldn't be this all-encompassing, but it is. Oh, it is.-Anne-Marie Oomen has authored or edited seven books of poetry or nonfiction, most recently ELEMENTAL: A Collection of Michigan Nonfiction, a Michigan Notable Book"

Author Information

CJ Giroux was born and raised in Michigan. He grew up in the metropolitan Detroit area and completed his studies at Wayne State University. His dissertation focused on representations of trauma in the works of twentieth-century African American dramatists. He is a professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University, where he also helped direct the school's Writing Center and served as co-director of its Center for Community Writing. He is one of the founding editors of the community literary arts journal Still Life and the author of the chapbook Destination, Michigan. His poems can be found in journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad. He also serves on the staff of Dunes Review.

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