Shape and Shadow

The title of Linda McClure Dunn's chapbook, "Shape and Shadow", uses those words more in their verb sense than as nouns, although the latter is detectable. It is a retrospective assessment of the ever-morphing web of heredity, culture, and individual experience shaping who we are at any given time in our lives. It explores influences from the distant past through childhood and into the latter stages of life, as well as the impact of change life inevitably brings. There is a haunting element in this type of looking back as relationships and events are revisited, sometimes in metaphor, and receive acceptance but not always without regret. The final poem reveals how this objective reconsideration grants the author fuller understanding of and a certain patience with the unfolding of life.