University of Iowa Press
70 pgs, $18

Review by Molly Sutton Kiefer

Stephanie Pippin can turn a swoon-worthy phrase.  Admittedly, I could spend the whole of my word count copying down the syntactical constructions Pippin created, but I will rein myself in with a few to share:  “this sky of promiscuous wings,” “Their jeweled eyes lamp the ash,” “The red fruit, with its buds / Like a string of little time bombs,” “the green / throat of an elm,” “winter’s / blood clock counting / mice,” “The waves in their gray / Ruches remind me / Of tormented pigeons,” “stargazer / lilies wilt like angels / overthrown, a bed of throats / collapsing,” “sogged with August, / morels swelling like lungs.”  These images are the sorts I collect, as if an ornithologist in the field, tucking samples into my notebook for the specimen tray at the museum.

Poems with wings:  fifteen.  Eggs:   eight.  Feathers:  five.  The last poem contains all three.  Other words I could have counted:  blood, death, bones.

Know too, that “his feathers / are holy things” and in a poem such as “Hatch,” “It is hard to give birth / to yourself.”  Continue reading →