An elegantly crafted, dense work that invites readers to travel on spiritual, philosophical, and historical journeys.
In this winner of the May Swenson Poetry Award Series, Hutchins (The Stranger Dissolves, 2011, etc.) explores the impact of memories in emotionally and linguistically complex poems.
With heart-rending images, Hutchins uses the power of the ordinary (“How dare the ordinary be brutal and needing us”) to create textured connections. She moves from highly personal experiences to shared histories. Worn shoes epitomize the effect of a father’s Alzheimer’s disease and death in “Cleaning Out The Garage in 1968”: “and it was an old shoe / dried into the same stiffness / laces untied and dangling and / shadow where your foot should be / the leather tongue / still molded to the known / curve of your high instep.” In “Linseed,” she stands witness to the persistence of nature in the face of the evil of the Holocaust: “Who knew at Auschwitz the grass would be/ so very green?” Her attention to language adds to the intricacy of her poems, whether by exploring language itself in “Between Pages of the Dictionary” or playing with it in “The Music Inside”: “ ‘Ring,’ I said. / I sang, ‘wrangle, wrung.’ ” She expertly weaves melodic language with references to nature, music, history, nursery rhymes, mythology, religious tracts, and more, which gracefully and pointedly guide readers through her themes. However, the intended depth of some references is not always obvious. In “Eye of the Storm, Pescadero Coast, 1972,” readers easily feel the plight of farm workers, “Along worn cliffs / in the farm workers’ small-windowed shacks, stoves / burned into the dark of the day. / It was Sunday, but only the storm made it / Sabbath. In flooded fields, unharvested / Brussels sprouts clung to their stalks.” Only through endnotes, which aren’t used for all references, do readers discover the poem alludes to California’s record 1972 rainstorms when Cesar Chavez fasted to support the United Farm Workers’ boycott and the 1939 farm workers strike led by Filipino labor leaders. The collection will be of interest to all readers, but it will be best suited to academics and serious poetry lovers.
An elegantly crafted, dense work that invites readers to travel on spiritual, philosophical, and historical journeys.Pub Date: March 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60732-438-6
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Utah State University Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.
Heidish (A Misplaced Woman, 2016, etc.) presents an account of St. Francis of Assisi’s life, as told from his father’s perspective in poetic form.
St. Francis is known as a saint who believed in living the Gospel, gave sermons to birds, and tamed a wolf. Over the course of 84 poems, Heidish tells her own fictionalized version of the saint’s journey. In his youth, Francesco is an apprentice of his father, Pietro Bernardone, a fabric importer. The boy is a sensitive dreamer and nature lover who sees “natural holiness in every living thing.” As an adult, Francesco decides to pursue knighthood, but God warns him to “Go back, child / Serve the master.” He joins the Church of San Damiano, steals his father’s storeroom stock, and sells it to rebuild the church. His furious father chains him in the cellar, and the bishop orders Francesco to repay the debt. Afterward, father and son stop speaking to each other; Francesco becomes a healer of the sick and a proficient preacher. After failing to broker a peace agreement during wartime, Francesco falls into depression and resigns his church position. He retreats to the mountains and eventually dies; it’s only then that Pietro becomes a true follower of St. Francis: “You are the father now and I the son / learning still what it means to be a saint,” he says. Heidish’s decision to tell this story from Pietro’s perspective is what makes this oft-told legend seem fresh again. She uses superb similes and metaphors; for example, at different points, she writes that St. Francis had eyes like “lit wicks” and a spirit that “shone like a clean copper pot.” In another instance, she describes the Church of San Damiano as a place in which “walls crumbled / like stale dry bread.” Following the poems, the author also offers a thorough and engaging historical summary of the real life of St. Francis, which only adds further context and depth to the tale.
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9905262-1-6
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Dolan & Associates
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.
A debut volume of poetry explores love and war.
Divided into four sections, Osaki’s book covers vast emotional territories. Section 1, entitled “Walking Back the Cat,” is a reflection on youthful relationships both familial and romantic. “Dying Arts,” the second part, is an examination of war and its brutal consequences. But sections three and four, named “Tradecraft” and “Best Evidence” respectively, do not appear to group poems by theme. The collection opens with “My Father Holding Squash,” one of Osaki’s strongest poems. It introduces the poet’s preoccupation with ephemera—particularly old photographs and letters. Here he describes a photo that is “several years old” of his father in his garden. Osaki muses that an invisible caption reads: “Look at this, you poetry-writing / jackass. Not everything I raise is useless!” The squash is described as “bearable fruit,” wryly hinting that the poet son is considered somewhat less bearable in his father’s eyes. Again, in the poem “Photograph,” Osaki is at his best, sensuously describing a shot of a young woman and the fleeting nature of that moment spent with her: “I know only that I was with her / in a room years ago, and that the sun filtering / into that room faded instantly upon striking the floor.” Wistful nostalgia gives way to violence in “Dying Arts.” Poems such as “Preserve” present a battleground dystopia: “Upturned graves and craters / to swim in when it rains. / Small children shake skulls / like rattles, while older ones carve rifles / out of bone.” Meanwhile, “Silver Star” considers the act of escorting the coffin of a dead soldier home, and “Gun Song” ruminates on owning a weapon to protect against home invasion. The language is more jagged here but powerfully unsettling nonetheless. The collection boasts a range of promising poetic voices, but they do not speak to one another, a common pitfall found in debuts. “Walking Back the Cat” is outstanding in its refined attention to detail; the sections following it read as though they have been produced by two or more other poets. Nevertheless, this is thoughtful, timely writing that demands further attention.
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984198-32-7
Page Count: 66
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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