In The Sewing Room Carla Funk reveals deftly observed insights into childhood and time, matrimony and spirituality, representation and recollection.
Funk explores issues of faith and belief as she re-imagines Samson and Delilah as Ricky and Lucy of I Love Lucy fame. Gluttony is last in the seven deadly sins foot race, huffing and puffing, but it is not for lack of trying.
Other poems offer a more personal point of view with assured and tender love poems. Funk writes from experience of marriage and domesticity, and of the ways in which a relationship shapes the person one becomes.
A series of poems is drawn from family reminiscence. Children play flashlight tag, a father builds his daughter a tree house, a mother makes a blue velvet Christmas dress: this is poetry created from memory's ragbag. Funk makes something captivating from the cast-off, beauty from memory.