Book Review: A Short Supply of Viability

Reviewed by Elizabeth Zender

A thoughtful, vivid, and surprisingly pleasing exploration of grief

In a variety of poetic devices and sharp imagery, A Short Supply of Viability by Annette Gagliardi meets at the intersections of grief, caregiving, and death.

Speaking on both the deaths of others and the death within ourselves as a result, you would expect the book to come with a certain weight. And it’s true; a number of poems are absolute heartbreakers. But Gagliardi brings forth a brightness amidst the sorrow, a reminder of what makes life wonderful.

One of the many things I loved about this collection is Gagliardi’s use of alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Lines like “I don’t want to last long, lingering nights, laying listlessly” from “A Convenient Death” linger in my mind; the repeated “S” sounds in “When We Get Old Enough” create a beautiful, flowing through-line that propels us toward the end of life. Gagliardi’s work is timeless and reminiscent of classical poetry without sacrificing the modernity of the now.

“Do the heartbeats used
for those dreams destroy
lives lived in spite of them.

“Would you languish for that loss, as well?”

Natural imagery weaves through the themes of dying and caregiving. In “Geraniums,” one of several poems exploring the grief of losing a parent, stanzas alternate between caring for a withering plant and caring for an ill loved one. The stanzas express the mixture of a household chore with internality, as if the speaker is ruminating on things that have passed, wondering what could have been different.

Gagliardi’s exploration of the exhaustion associated with caregiving and the way this moves into the readiness to say goodbye is done smoothly, transitioning from one emotion to the next and into the final stages of grief with the grace and beauty often not given to death. I think that death, while a topic far from taboo in poetry, is not always looked at from multiple angles. We witness the perspective of someone bearing witness to a life being lost while speaking on the way it impacts how the speaker sees her own eventual passing.

This is a collection to re-read, even if just as a comfort after the loss of another loved one, a therapeutic addition to poetry lovers’ bookshelves. Gagliardi’s talent as a poet is apparent from the start. This comforting collection will soothe those in the mood for reflection in and around the hardest times.

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