Reviewed on 2/18/2025
★★★★☆
The tomb. The resurrected garden./ Grandma’s only magic trick.
“The Root Cellar” is a sacred tribute to Grandma’s survival magic. Adrienne Kvello introduces us to the dank corner of the root cellar. The speaker highlights the unsettling and stagnant air (“a tomb”) of the “musty darkness.” The poem then transforms the cold space into a hopeful sanctuary, one that “[bursts] with life.” The contrast between “the tomb” and “jars of nourishment” creates an animated forest floor with infinite possibilities.
Kvello continues by depicting Grandma’s “sweaty work to preserve.” The paradox of “mummies” being the source of life manifests the mechanical human effort, a revival of the dead into a garden that feeds “ravenous mouths.” The speaker then silhouettes Grandma’s figure as a “squirrel/ [who] knows every nut he’s stashed.” She is someone confined by reality yet exerting a power of the supernatural. The final line complicates the irony of survival: “The resurrected garden/ [is] Grandma’s only magic trick.” She never performs wondrous miracles, but heroic human labor that calls for sweat and sacrifice. To live is the “only trick” she and the family have to learn.
Full Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/156919/the-root-cellar
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