Description
Book SynopsisFor decades a restorer of old homes, Connie Wanek shows us that poetry is everywhere, encountered as easily in the waterways, landscapes, and winters of Minnesota, as in the old roofs and darkened drawers of a home long uninhabited.
Rival Gardens includes more than thirty unpublished poems, along with poems selected from three previous books.
Trade Review"Beautiful in every respect."—Tim Nolan,
MN Artists"An instant favorite of mine."—Danny Heitman,
Christian Science Monitor"Equal parts marvel and pang,
Rival Gardens documents the grit, heart, and wisdom of an ecopoetic sage."—
Plume Poetry"Wanek’s imagery is consistently outstanding."—Edward A. Dougherty,
Rain Taxi"Readers who are already fans of Wanek will be overjoyed with
Rival Gardens. For those who are new to Wanek, this is the perfect collection for wading into the full scope of her amazing poetry."—Andrew Nye,
Corresponder“Connie Wanek’s beautiful poems travel effortlessly among our various realms—the human, the natural, and the cosmic, inhabited by gods who may have some resemblance to ourselves. The light is wonderfully clear in these accounts, as is the darkness, each one illuminating the other.”—Charles Baxter, author of
There’s Something I Want You to Do“Connie Wanek is one of the best poets of our time, and this new book,
Rival Gardens, certainly demonstrates that. These selections . . . are works of wit and subtlety, of clarity, great generosity, and precise vision that make this book a treasure to read again and again.”—Louis Jenkins, author of
Before You Know It and
Tin Flag“In Wanek’s earth-proud, glorious work, all elements are in communication: a chimney offers ‘a plume of smoke hand-feeding the wind,’ a radish ‘bites you back,’ and a moose’s ‘grave eyes’ are ‘reminiscent somehow of Abe Lincoln.’ The first time I found her poems I phoned them to friends before making it past the library stairs.
Rival Gardens offers a thrilling gift to anyone who loves metaphors, human beings, compassion, and the revelation of sly observation—I’m sending out a cosmic call: these lyric narratives bring you life through a consciousness you wish you had lived.”—Jessica Greenbaum, editor of
upstreet and author of
The Two YvonnesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction by Ted Kooser
Selections from Bonfire
April
Red Fox
Abstract
Wild Apples
The Girl and the Horses
Daylilies
The Wandering Sky
Broom
Skim Milk
Radish
Radiator
Missed Bus
Duluth, Minnesota
Blue Moon
The Gelding
Dragonfly
Rain
Toward Dusk
Peonies
Amaryllis
Christmas Tree
January
Bonfire
Ski Tracks
Selections from Hartley Field
The Coin behind Your Ear
The Ventriloquist
Butter
Peaches
Red Rover
Jump Rope
Horses in Spring
Summer Night
Lemon
Long Nights
Postcard: Busy Clarence Town Harbor on a Mail Boat Day
Honesty
Black and White Photograph
Memorial Day at the Lake
The Midwife
The Exchange
Children near the Water
A Field of Barley
Checkers
So like Her Father
The Hammer
Tag
Late September
New Snow
Grown Children
Heart Surgery
All Saints’ Day
Christmas Fable
After Us
Hartley Field
Selections from On Speaking Terms
First Snow
Monopoly
Nothing
Tracks in the Snow
The Accordion
Scrabble
Directions
Lipstick
Everything Free
Fishing on Isabella Lake
Garlic
Rags
Lady
Confessional Poem
Walking Distance
The Splits
Buttercups
Closest to the Sky
Comb
Umbrella
Picture Yourself
The Death of My Father
A Sighting
Green Tent
Pumpkin
A Random Gust from the North
Musical Chairs
A Parting
Pecans
Old Snow
Pickles
Coloring Book
Blue Ink
Six Months after My Father’s Death
Honey
Leftovers
Ice Out
New Poems
Part One
Garter Snake
Pollen
Rival Gardens
The Summerhouse
Polygamy
The Neighbor’s Pond
An Ordinary Crisis
Mysterious Neighbors
Catbird
Root Words
Rain Collection
Blue Flags
“Golden Glow”
Blackbirds at Dusk
First House
Last Star
Part Two
Used Book
Ghost Town
When I Was a Boy
Audience
John Q. Public
A Collection of Near Misses
Adaptation
Plein Air
The Death of the Battery
Girdle
Parts per Million
Mrs. God
Genesis, Cont.
Day of Rest
Business
First Love
Part Three
Artificial Tears
I Heard You Come In
Pavement Ends
The Shoes of the Dead
A Last Time for Everything
Practice
Phoebe
They Live with Us
Recalled to Life
Walleye
Wild Asters
Brave Rabbits
Brave Rabbits, a Second Look
A Marsh at Twilight
The Second Half of the Night
Cabbage Moth
Garden Gloves
Also by This Gardener
