That Certain Blue

To an Anchorage schoolyard invaded by a bull moose. To
a spot at Lord Rothschild's tea table. To the uncharted,
unfathomable territory of an aging mother's dementia.
To the end of a Chrysler assembly line in Detroit.
With lively wit and an eye for striking imagery, Sharon
Lask Munson takes us all over this world and through
generations of family history and lore. Her poems invite
us into both macrocosm and microcosm-that place in
which "Earth rotates on its axis/ and a vine maple drops
its last red leaf."
-Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate



Sharon Lask Munson's fi rst full-length book, Th at Certain Blue, is charming
and tender. Munson's unpretentious free verse invites the reader to engage
with her narratives of everyday life. Details about gypsy moths, a kiss on the
palm, Pearl Harbor, begin in the kitchen and ultimately plant us in Detroit
(where she grew up), Alaska (where she taught school and fell in love), and
Oregon (where she lives now). Much like Marge Piercy, her poems are tinged
with references to her Jewish heritage. One cannot help but feel the truths
behind her lines.
-Laura LeHew, Editor, Uttered Chaos


This is poetry about civilization: "It all begins in the kitchen" and is sustained
by a poet's clear memory and cameo-like vignettes of family, travel, and homes
in Detroit, Alaska and Oregon. That Certain Blue "brings a wistfulness" for
things past and passing. The poet cherishes simple pleasures, the here and
now of a full moon or the first day at school. The "Six Years" of her mother's
Alzheimer's is the worst fate: memory loss, loss of recognition and tradition,
loss of the knack her daughter has of telling things exactly as they are.
-Erik Muller, Editor, Traprock Books


"As weightless as the one thin strand of hair/drifts toward first light," writes
Sharon Lask Munson, and with those words she could be describing the
poems in That Certain Blue, poems which seem to fl oat above the page as they
carry us effortlessly from the 1950's Detroit to Alaska's Kenai, from a young
girl playing poker on Joey Silver's porch to an adult daughter preparing for
her ailing mother one last Spanish omelet. Munson is a certain navigator
across this landscape of a well-wrought life: "traveling the highway, visibility
clear/throttle up."
-Nancy Carol Moody, Poet, Photograph With Girls


About the Author
Sharon Lask Munson grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She attended
Michigan State University and Wayne State University. She taught for
the Department of Defense Schools in England, Germany, Okinawa, and
Puerto Rico. After overseas teaching, Sharon drove her blue Oldsmobile
up the Alcan Highway to Anchorage, Alaska where she put down new
roots, taught school, married, and lived for the next twenty years. She is
now retired and lives with her husband, Keith, in Eugene, Oregon. She
has poems in Verseweavers, Windfall, Earth's Daughters, Drash: Northwest
Mosiac, Th e Quizzical Chair, Goose River Anthology, Popshot, Punkin House
Digest, and many other literary journals and anthologies. Her chapbook,
Stillness Settles Down the Lane was published in summer 2010 by Utterred
Chaos Press. That Certain Blue is her first full-length book of poems.