The Chrome Chair is Newfoundland, feminist environmentalist poetry at its finest. Devereaux’s sharp, humorous writing cuts to the heart of contemporary concerns around feminism and climate change through playful re-imaginings of the life of historical figure Rachel Carson, and wry critiques of Newfoundland politics.
The chrome kitchen chair, as an object, is a poor second cousin to the stately wooden dining chair – it is vintage, but not antique. And yet, there is something appealing about its shiny silver legs, the brightly coloured floral or starburst patterns on its padded back and seat. If, when promised a seat at the table of nations, Newfoundland was handed a chrome chair, so too was a chrome chair kicked in the direction of women promised equality.
Divided into two sections, these poems are about fear and feminists and Barbie and hearts that won’t behave. And they are about Rachel Carson, what her life might have looked like without the confines of white female respectability, and what she might think of us now. Rooted on the island of Newfoundland, cut through with humour and anxiety, the poems in this collection are serious, irreverent and reverent by turns, feminist, sexy and sometimes a little bit wacky.
