WOLF TREES

Hartsock’s poetry collection combines musings on nature in the Great Lakes region, classical myths, and an account of struggling with chronic illness.

The wolf tree—that old, craggy giant of the forest—is employed as an elaborate metaphor throughout this collection, the author’s second after Bed of Impatiens (2016). Wolf trees are described colorfully in “The Wolf Tree in Film”: “Casting / shade for lovers or a villain’s fried chicken / lunch spread on gingham cloth, / and the treasure buried beneath its roots.” They harbor many kinds of life, so experts advise not to cut them down, and in the title poem, Hartsock links this idea to modern people with diabetes who live longer because of insulin (“And why/was I not cut down like the rest”). Another poem addresses the challenges of motherhood, including breastfeeding, which is connected to the ancient Greek goddess Thetis in the prose poem “The Nipple Shield of Achilles.” Always, the speaker is cognizant of her own mortality, as in “Musculature”: “Call its excess / Whitmanian, this blood / sugar of mine, that loafs at its ease / and sometimes in largesse.” A wonderful Western-genre anecdote turns into an imagined meeting of Ovid and Jesus Christ in “John Wayne Brings Wyatt Earp a Cup of Coffee”: “and the epic erotic tragic elegiac poet / locked eyes with the youth in a way / that made the sagebrush whir / and thrum below the signposts.” Hartsock’s exciting collection excels at moving classical figures and mythology into the modern world, using such varied devices as The Empire Strikes Back, and an Italian tour guide wearing Ray-Bans. Although the topics are serious, the unpretentious tone and flawless descriptions make this an engaging collection that confronts modern problems head-on. The incorporation of personal relationships takes the collection to an even higher level; Hartsock does it with such command that the effect is beautiful and jarring, as in “Marriage Bed With Medical Devices.”

A dynamic and accessible set of poems brimming with ancient lore.