October AubadeIf I slept too long, forgive me.A north wind quickened the window framesso the room pitched like a moving trainand the pillow’s whiff of hickoryand shaving soap conjured your bodybeside me. So I slept in the berthas the train chuffed on, unburdenedby waking’s cold water, ignorantof pain, estrangement, hunger and the crucial fuel the boiler burned to keep the minutes’ pistons churningwhile I slept. Forgive me.That Kind of Happy, the long-awaited second collection by award-winning poet Maggie Dietz, explores the sharp, profound tension between a disquieted inner life and quotidian experience. Central to the book are poems that take up two major life events: becoming a mother and losing a father within a short stretch of time. Here, at the intersection of joy and grief, of persistence and attrition, Dietz wrestles with the questions posed by such conflicting experiences, revealing a mind suspicious of quick fixes and dissatisfied with easy answers. The result is a book as anguished as it is distinguished.
