Fine Lines and Other Wrinkles

Ada Jill Schneider

Ada Jill Schneider is that rarest of birds, a poet who did not start writing until relatively late in life (she penned her first poem at fifty-three) and still managed to achieve a deal of acclaim while still alive. (She is still alive as I write this; those within driving distance of Somerset, MA, can attend her poetry workshops at the Somerset Public Library every Wednesday afternoon, in fact.)

The acclaim is quite deserved. As with most of this issue's collections, Fine Lines and Wrinkles can be inconsistent at times, but it does deliver more of the former part of its title than the latter. Schneider, still the enthusiastic youngster when it comes to poetry, gobbles up form dictionaries and tries her hand at various types of formal verse, often with a modicum of success, speckling them amidst simpler formal verse and the odd free verse piece here and there. She rarely loses sight of the importance of the image in writing effective poetry, and her word choice is spot-on 90% of the time or more. All of these ingredients, of course, lead to a pleasurable read. While the work itself doesn't quite have the seasoning to push Schneider's poems from the realm of the very good into the realm of the timeless, there is undeniable power in many of these pieces, and what holds them back does not come off as incompetence, but rather as a charming naiveté; Schneider's enthusiasm shows through enough to keep the reader on her side.