Linda Enders has given us a collection of poems for the trying times we live in. While these poems address issues such as climate change, migrants seeking new homes and lives, the losses and grief of death, they also allow us to share in joyful memories, take a quirky look at the paintings of Picasso and James McNeil Whistler, hear the "Hallelujah" of Leonard Cohen, and eavesdrop on the poet's request to speak to Louise Gluck in private. This collection is delightful and poignant, insightful, and inviting. Many of the poems are short, tight, and pack a punch, concluding with lines like "In the redwood's height and width/there's all the time in the world" and "The body fortifies itself to avoid the final call./The soul listens for the bell to ring." Reading this collection is very much like the final stanza of "Autumn Shimmer": "Early morning in autumn/when I open my window to the world,/ the hummingbird flashes her colors,/loops away into the mellow orange/of morning light--/Where is sorrow now?" This is the question many of these poems ask, addressing the contradiction and complication of our existence.
Anita Skeen, 2023 Judge
Author of
Never the Whole Story
;
The Resurrection of the Animals
Outside the Fold, Outside the Frame
and
Each Hand a Map