New Ohio Review

Strange Gift by Veronica Kornberg

By Tyler List

Veronica Kornberg’s Strange Gift is a strong collection of poems that tells the story of family love, the passing of time, and finding a place to belong. Each poem paints a clear and vivid picture in our minds, and Kornberg takes the reader on a turbulent journey, making use of the speaker’s voice as a way of watching the world change over time. These poems illustrate both a deep appreciation of life and a deep fear of the inevitable, and Kornberg excels in depicting the harrowing adventure of consciousness—its lovely mornings and dark nights. 

The first section of this collection focuses on finding one’s place, both literally and metaphorically. And in that, a highlight in Kornberg’s collection is titled “Home.” This poem’s idea is a simple question that can be asked over and over: What does it mean to really feel “at home?” The speaker deliberates with themself about this: 

If you pried me away from this place, 
turned me over and gutted me 
you’d find a picture in the shape of 
a house, a wave the color of pearl. 
If you held me to your ear 
you’d hear the click of the perfect 
match of key to latch. 

The speaker seems discontented with where they currently are, both internally and externally. They do not feel like they belong in this place that they are supposed to feel welcome in. They feel that they will “never be a local, always / someone from over the hill.” This poem does not have an immediate solution to this issue, and that is because there is not meant to be one yet. The speaker is facing a sort of deep-rooted isolation inside, one that makes it difficult for them to assess the value in what they see around them. The “home” that exists within the body of the speaker in this excerpt, though, is the home that they remember, that still persists. It is where one would “hear the click of the perfect / match of key to latch.” In other words, a perfect fit. It is tight lyrics like this, individual memories, that make a Kornberg poem, and you see in the careful line breaks and rhyming of “match” and “latch” what a skilled practitioner she is. 

This idea of homesickness and longing appears in another standout poem that comes from the second section of the book, “An Appreciation.” While a shorter poem, it carries a feeling of heavy admiration for nature and memory. The speaker of the poem questions what is so wonderful about the view out of the window seat of a plane. When they lift the shade, they imagine their own wondrous sights: 

So this, I thought, is mine: 
soup on a cold night: familiar tune 
written on the staff of an empty ocean: 
sleeping question mark of ordinary light. 

In this poem, as well as the last, the speaker commonly misses their home by the ocean, which carries its own significance. The ocean acts as the speaker’s respite, their place of calm familiarity. Kornberg portrays this vividly, and in this way, the reader is also able to imagine, to hear like notes on a staff, this wistful scene of home.  

The ocean continues its importance in one of the excellent poems of the second section, aptly named “Oceans of Time.” In this poem, the speaker reminisces on their father, a man that was affectionately nicknamed “Weed.” The name, according to the speaker, was tied to how he would weed the tomato patch they had. The father is described in nearly the same way that the ocean has been in various other poems: 

And what do I want now, here 
with the ocean pounding at a distance and yellow 
poppies feathering up from the soil? I want his arms— 
muscled arms to catch a cartwheeling 
umbrella in the nick of time, or lift me high 
on his shoulders as a wave overwhelmed him. 
Weed—how I miss the name in my mouth. 

The poem brings forth a new form of longing that the speaker feels, that being familial longing. The impact of him not being present affects the speaker heavily, and we feel the poignancy of the loss in that umbrella image. We sense how quickly what was once caught “in the nick of time” can instead slip away. And with the one word “cartwheeling,” we understand the buoyancy of childhood, when you can fly of your own volition and be caught without even noticing you were about to fall. 

The poem that best showcases all of Kornberg’s intertwining themes is “A Daughter Leaves Home,” which mirrors “Home” earlier in the book. This poem takes a unique approach compared to the rest of the book: instead of the perspective being the speaker missing their loved ones and home, it is now the speaker being worried about sending their own daughter off to see the world. Kornberg wrestles with the worries of departure from a whole new viewpoint: 

You make those pretty-please eyes 
and my heart pricks—what else 
have I neglected to teach you? 
But with only a few minutes before you leave 
for the airport, it’s not the moment to say 
If a powerful older man shows an intense personal interest… 
If the subway entrance lights are out… 

The speaker holds an immense fear of what could happen to someone else they love, this time their own daughter. Kornberg shows this through the internal thoughts of the speaker, highlighting their vast worries. Maybe all of the wisdom I have gained, this poem suggests, hasn’t yet been passed on in the way it needed to be.  

The poems in this outstanding collection begin with the speaker doubting their own place in life, continue with her remembering and missing the good times, and resolve with her sending of her own child. As we experience this arc, Strange Gift feels like a book that knows the lights won’t always shine as brightly as they need to. But in its bittersweet revelations, the book creates a new hearth. And we are privileged to sit by that fire, happy to turn our ear to its warmth.