Books Noted
Joanna Klink, Raptus

Penguin, 2010

The poems in this collection are crafted with an artful, lyrical hand, evoking a kind of elegant, spiritual accomplice in their making. However, this is no stylistic veneer or lofty removal; the stuff of Klink's poems is the mess of human encounters, and the art is often in the questions, not the absolutes. In the poem "Sorting," Klink writes:

Step into a life that is not
          dreamed and try to say now if there are
          remnants of illusion.

Is what you say every day real.

Are the lesser estrangements
     Deeper and if so how much can you bear
          and if not
     What will convince you.

Does the sparrow on the t.v. antenna convince
          you—it is there every day.

Her positioning and re-positioning cast loss, separation, beginnings, and endings in a multilayered light. Donald Revell says: "Joanna Klink has moved human relationship to a vatic, visionary place, and we are changed."