Times Like These by Rachel Ingalls (Graywolf Press, $16 paperback, 1555974317, October 2005).
I have been an admirer of Rachel Ingalls since reading the remarkable Binstead's Safari and Mrs. Caliban,
but her publications are so infrequent I had despaired of getting a new
Ingalls fix. Fortunately Graywolf has published a collection of eight
short stories that should satisfy her fans as well as introduce this
quirky author to a new audience. Her mysterious and surreal writing
features elaborate plots, sometimes the supernatural ("Somewhere
Else"), sometimes operatic madness ("Last Act: The Madhouse"), and
always unpredictability. A perfect book for a dark winter night.
---
Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon (Graywolf Press, $26, 1555974287, September 2005.)
At the 10-year anniversary of Kenyon's death, all of her published
poetry has been assembled in this volume, and what a treasure it is.
Describing her poetry cannot compare to quoting it, so here is the
luminous and moving "In the Nursing Home":
She is like a horse grazing
a hill pasture that someone makes
smaller by coming every night
to pull the fences in and in.
She has stopped running wide loops,
stopped even the wide circles.
She drops her head to feed; grass
is dust, and the creekbed's dry.
Master, come with your light
halter. Come and bring her in.
--Marilyn Dahl
I have been an admirer of Rachel Ingalls since reading the remarkable Binstead's Safari and Mrs. Caliban,
but her publications are so infrequent I had despaired of getting a new
Ingalls fix. Fortunately Graywolf has published a collection of eight
short stories that should satisfy her fans as well as introduce this
quirky author to a new audience. Her mysterious and surreal writing
features elaborate plots, sometimes the supernatural ("Somewhere
Else"), sometimes operatic madness ("Last Act: The Madhouse"), and
always unpredictability. A perfect book for a dark winter night.---
Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon (Graywolf Press, $26, 1555974287, September 2005.)
At the 10-year anniversary of Kenyon's death, all of her published
poetry has been assembled in this volume, and what a treasure it is.
Describing her poetry cannot compare to quoting it, so here is the
luminous and moving "In the Nursing Home":She is like a horse grazing
a hill pasture that someone makes
smaller by coming every night
to pull the fences in and in.
She has stopped running wide loops,
stopped even the wide circles.
She drops her head to feed; grass
is dust, and the creekbed's dry.
Master, come with your light
halter. Come and bring her in.
--Marilyn Dahl