NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

A SLICE OF CHERRY PIE contains poems based on the American serial drama TWIN PEAKS. The show was set in the fictional town of Twin Peaks in northeast Washington State. The central plot line tells the story of FBI special Agent Dale Cooper and his investigation into the murder of a popular local teenage schoolgirl, Laura Palmer.

Inspired by the show, the collection contains poems by eleven poets. As Ivy Alvarez states in her INTRODUCTION, these are

Poems that move strangely, backwards and forwards, sideways, inside out and upside down, speaking their own language.

	A screech in the dark —
	the moon sets beyond the woods
	but the owls remain.

	Coincidence is a word for fools.  The future comes to you for advice.
	Dreams littered with dwarves shaped like clues, you have the gift. Coop.

	syawIA tsurt a eulc morf retuo.ecaps

	As the blue rose buds
	mysteries of life unfold
	pinned on a red dress

	so I make your arms bend back,
	pull you against me and we dance,
	carve my name under your nails.

	to find a house that can hold you and know what's in my bones
	...
	becoming Beauty through anguish

SAYONARA, CHERRY PIE, by Maureen Thorson, is one of the longest poems in the collection. Written in eight four-line stanzas, the poem opens up the gulf between the veneer of small-town respectability and the seedier layers of society. Several of the mysterious motifs used in the series — trees, water, coffee, donuts, owls — are invoked in the poem:

	I like the idea of it — a cherry pie.  I liked the idea of you,
	Though in practice you weren't as good as I'd hoped.
	Black coffee's that way, too, words I like to say,
	But not a thing I'll drink.  I take

	Cream and sugar, thank you.  We'll have it
	In a diner.  I like them as ideas; don't like that
	Greasy food — it always sits on you like a stone.  So:
	Cherry pie, black coffee, neon "All Night" sign.

	My log does not judge.  It can only proclaim.
	Don't close your eyes or you will burst into flame.

	I feel like a wild person
	Trapped inside a quiet person
	How frustrating for us both

Elena Knox's PALINPOEM FOR PETE'S SAKE could be an imitation of a palinode — a poem that retracts or takes back something previously said, or which recants an earlier attack.

In TRAFFIC LIGHT GIRLS, by Siobhan Logan, the allusions are to the secrets to be found in Laura's diary, which may hold the key to her murder. Harold Smith, who was one of Laura's fiends, holds the diary, which reveals Laura was abused by a character named 'Bob':

	they are children in Momma's too-big shoes
	would-be femmes in bobby socks
	opening the clasp on diary locks
	between milkshakes and homework blots

Diane, I'm holding in my hands a small box of chocolate bunnies. It struck me again earlier this morning, there are two things: the cherry pie is worth a stop. Okay. And it looks like I'll be at the Calhoun Memorial Hospital. I guess we're going to go up to intensive care to see the Kennedys.

What really went on between Marilyn Monroe and thirty-one cents at the Calhoun Memorial Hospital?

I am reminded by the poems in A SLICE OF CHERRY PIE that we can be anyone we like, adopting disguises and illusions, or allowing ourselves to be stripped bare, open to people and to the realms of the imagination. Engaging with other people within the culture of cult movies, may lead to enlightenment and greater understanding of ourselves. Thus by sharing with these poets an openness to the delights of pop culture, particularly within their sphere of interest — TWIN PEAKS — where incidents are never explained and many clues remain to be discovered "like Cheshire cat riddles", the reader perhaps comes to know him- or herself better.

What do these poems mean for our way of using our imagination? How does a compartmentalised view of matters obstruct our imagination? To what extent does the absence of knowledge about the cult series affect our interest in the poems? These are questions we might ask ourselves when reading this collection. But it is an intriguing and accomplished collection, not merely a put-together collage or even a mosaic in words, but a compilation complete and riveting.