Anne Harding Woodworth, The Spare Parts Saga, Published by Turning Point, 2024, ISBN-10: 1625494564, 44 pages, $16.25
Anne Harding Woodworth’s new book The Spare Parts Saga is short, just 43 pages but its structure is clever. The basic premise is that it is the story of the poet sending a book Spare Parts a Novella in Verse (published in 2008) to a poet friend living in Ireland, County Tipperary. Ms. Woodworth lives in Washington, D.C. The saga begins on July 12, 2:53 p.m. as the United States Postal Service has the manuscript in its possession. Each segment or chapter of this book long poem follows the progress of the manuscript in the USPS to Dublin Ireland and eventually Ms. Woodworth’s friend in Tipperary on August 12th . Each stop of the manuscript in the local post offices and distribution centers is chronicled.
The verse of each section may be about the journey in the post office and/or small narratives about the poet’s experiences and private world. The poet is at times complimentary to the post office and its workers and at other times sarcastically critical, but she takes the wide view and tries to be fair. She does call out the U.S, Postmaster Louis DeJoy by name, at times in humorous and honest ways. There are short reminisces about the assassination of JFK and of 911. She writes about meeting her first husband Demetri in New York and briefly about her two sons who he fathered. A couple of times she describes her interactions with her second and current husband, Fred, in Washington. There are all kinds of asides and stories that accompany the main narrative of the novella in verse on its way to Ireland.
Anne Harding Woodworth’s poetry in this book is conversational, witty, and keeps the reader traveling through the narrative. Here are two brief entries on page 35 of this book about the travel of the original novella Spare Parts.
July 28, 1:23 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility, Washington DC Network Distribution Center
Goodbye and goodnight, DC. This is dragging on, dragging on.
OMG Today is National Soccer Day, but I’ve got to chill in bed now.
I’m ready for “Heartland” and Sean Johnston (who’s Jack to me).
My glasses are on., my earbuds in.
July 28, 2:22 am
Arrived at USPS Facility, Hyattsville, MD 20785
I can’t sleep. Hyattsville is haunting me.
I find I don’t need more than five hours a night, anyway.
It used to be eight. As a teen, I slept till noon,
Unless I had to drag myself to school.
What teen doesn’t want to sleep all morning?
IT’S A LAW OF NATURE. Teens need sleep.
But once that was over, I figured out
That sleep was a waste of time.
I suppose some would say “Heartland” is too.
I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a pleasant diversion from your day, and to pick up a few odd and end insights into life, government bureaucracy and the international community of poets.
© Anne Harding Woodworth and Dan Cuddy
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of eight books of poetry and five chapbooks. Her most recent book is GENDER: Two Novellas in Verse. Her book TROUBLE received the 2022 William Meredith Award for Poetry, and an excerpt from her chapbook THE LAST GUN won the COG Poetry Award and was subsequently animated (see https://vimeo.com/193842252). Anne is a member of the Board of Governors at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Mass.
(For more information, http://www.annehardingwoodworth.com.)
Dan Cuddy is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review. In the past, he was a contributing editor of the Maryland Poetry Review and Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. His book of poetry, Handprint on the Window, was published in 2003. Recently he has had poems published in Super Poetry Highway, Literary Heist, Horror Sleaze Trash, the Rats’s Ass Review, Roanoke Review, the Amethyst Review, Synchronized Chaos, Fixator Press, The Manor Mill Anthology, Gargoyle, Witcraft, and the WE Anthology.
The Loch Raven Review 