Jack Ridl - Böcker

In Practicing to Walk Like a Heron multiple-award-winning Michigan poet Jack Ridl shares lines of well-earned wisdom in the face of a constantly changing world. The familiar comforts of life-a warm fire in winter, a lush garden in summer-become the settings for transcendent and universal truths in these poems, as moments of grief, sadness, and melancholy trigger a deeper appreciation for small but important joys. The simple clarity of Ridl's lines and diction make the poems accessible to all readers, but especially rewarding for those who appreciate carefully honed, masterful verse. Many of the poems take solace in nature-quiet deer outside in the woods, deep snow, a thrush's empty nest in the eaves-as well as man-made things in the world-a steamer trunk, glass jars, tea cups, and books piled high by an easy chair. Yet Ridl avoids becoming nostalgic or romantic in his surroundings, and shows that there is nothing easy in his celebration of topics like ""The Letters,"" ""But He Loved His Dog,"" ""A Christmas List for Santa,"" and ""The Enormous Mystery of Couples."" An interlude of full-colour pages divides Ridl's more personal poems with a section of circus-themed pieces, adding visions of elephants, trumpets, tents, sequins, and sideshows, and the uniquely travel-weary perspectives of jugglers, trapeze artists, roustabouts, and clowns. Practicing to Walk Like a Heron unabashedly affirms the quirky and eccentric, the small and mundane, and the intellectual and experiential in life. Anyone interested in relatable and emotionally powerful poetry will enjoy this new collection.

Jack Ridl returns with a collection of poems that mix deft artistic skill with intimate meditations on everyday life, whether that be curiosity, loss, discovery, joy, or the passing of the seasons. An early reader of Saint Peter and the Goldfinch said it best: ""Ridl's books are all treasures, as is he, and his poetry has always been trout-quick, alternately funny and wondrous, instantly intimate, and free of pretense. All these characteristics can be found in this book, and there is something else, something extraordinary: at an age where most poets are content to roll out an imagined posterity, he's decided to push and refine the art, to see out the day and live it fully, because art and life settle for no less."" The first section of Saint Peter and the Goldfinch reflects on the author's personal history, with poems like ""Feeding the Pup in the Early Morning"" and ""Some of What Was Left After Therapy."" The second section continues with meditations on varied events and persons and includes poems such as ""The Last Days of Sam Snead"" and ""Coffee Talks with Con Hilberry."" The third attends primarily to the mystery of love and what one loves and contains the poems ""The Inevitable Sorrow of Potatoes"" and ""Suite for the Long Married."" The fourth and final section meditates primarily on the imagined in poems like ""Over in That Corner, the Puppets"" and ""Meditation on a Photograph of a Man Jumping a Puddle in the Rain.""Saint Peter and the Goldfinch is the work of a talented and seasoned poet, one whose work comes out of the ""plainspoken"" tradition-the kind of poetry that, as Thomas Lynch puts it, ""has to deliver the goods, has to say something about life, something clear and discernible, or it has little to offer."" Readers of poetry who enjoy wrestling with life's big questions will appreciate the space that Ridl allows for these ruminations.