Extra Hidden Life, Among the Days

Description

Brenda Hillman begins her new book in a place of mourning and listening that is deeply transformative. By turns plain and transcendent, these poems meditate on trees, bacteria, wasps, buildings, roots, and stars, ending with twinned elegies and poems of praise that open into spaces that are both magical and archetypal for human imagination: forests and seashores. As always, Hillman’s vision is entirely original, her forms inventive and playful. At times the language turns feral as the poet feels her way toward other consciousnesses, into planetary time. This is poetry as a discipline of love and service to the world, whose lines shepherd us through grief and into an ethics of active resistance. Hillman’s prior books include Practical Water and Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the Griffin Prize for Poetry. Extra Hidden Life, Among the Days is a visionary and critically important work for our time. A free reader’s companion is available online at http://brendahillman.site.wesleyan.edu. Review "Neither simply empirical nor transcendental, Hillman's poetry takes what she calls 'woodmind'--a sort of deep attention to natural processes--and applies it to notions of human action, recollection, imagination, and craft."-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)" (12/18/2017 12:00:00 AM) "Brenda Hillman reminds us how surprising and delightful a poet can be when her technical skills are evenly matched with her inventive ideas."--Matt Sutherland "Foreword Reviews" (1/1/2018 12:00:00 AM) Review “Hillman turns simple concepts into things far more revealing. The intimacy she conveys, the disappointment, the panic even, these are elements of magic I want to revisit.” (Camille T. Dungy, author of Trophic Cascade) “For Hillman there is an alternative model of sociality that stems from attending to the destructive and creative fire that simply burns through righteous ideas to concrete objects that elicit our caring. Sociality in [Hillman’s] poetry arises from her radical, eco-centric view. It is the result of being aware that what we love and what engages us in the world will be lost if we fail to find alternatives to what that world is becoming.” (Charles Altieri, Open Humanities Press) “Hillman’s devotion to social justice—her unwavering belief in poetry’s capacity to address root causes of our political strife—ultimately purifies our fallen world in the languages of elemental fire.” (Karen An-Hwei Lee, Iowa Review)