Deep Down Curious by Michael Barnett: book review

Deep Down Curious: Stories and Poems by Michael Barnett (2000) is a collection of six short stories and six poems, written over a period of nine years, mainly set around the author’s home state of Texas in America.

I like the The Weeping Willow. Keelie has two brothers: 16-year-old Lanny and 13-year old Keith. They have a tree house in a willow tree ‘older than the Rock of Ages’ on the bank of a pond where they go fishing: ‘In the tree house, things made more sense.’ But something ‘deep down curious’ happened on this day.

Gentle Cycle Cold Separate is a story about Valerie and the male narrator. They had argued the day before, over international politics, and Valerie arranged for them to meet over breakfast. He arrives. He waits. ‘Changing the time thing: that’s what brought this on.’

There is also the story The Zen of Conductivity and Resilience.

The stories and poems combine both urban and rural living, especially farm life, and the blur in between lifestyles. All are centred around nature and outdoor life. All have a twist in the tale. This is a short collection, easy to read, but requiring thought – or imagination – to fill in some unresolved or ambiguous gaps. The poems are the stand-out feature, for me.

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MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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