NH Poetry: What is Amazing

Seth Abramson recommends What Is Amazing by HeatherChristle (Wesleyan University Press).

"Heather Christle uses simple language and powerful, iconic imagery to denote a complex network of anxieties and incapacities. Few will be unable to hear in the poet's work, as we so often hear in our own voices when we speak of the most sensitive subjects, a self-defensiveness and vulnerability that is uniquely human. The poems of Christle's latest collection, What Is Amazing, command, especially when read aloud, a sort of halting grace that reflects with startling precision not just the ambient confusion of contemporary living, but the many ways we strive for goodness, wholeness, and comfort in a culture that affords us too little of all three. I can't recommend this book enough to poetry-lovers looking for addictively readable and joyously imaginative poems that nevertheless convey primal truths--truths in which all of us, whatever our age or station or experience, take significant part." --Seth Abramson

Seth Abramson is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Thievery (University of Akron Press, 2013), winner of the 2012 Akron Poetry Prize. A graduate of Harvard Law School and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he worked as a Staff Attorney for the Nashua office of the New Hampshire Public Defender from 2001 to 2007. He presently reviews contemporary poetry for The Huffington Post.

This post is part of our celebration of National Poetry Month 2013 for which I asked New Hampshire poets and booksellers to recommend books of poetry by Granite State poets. These titles are generally available from local booksellers and may be held in public libraries as well.