Harbinger Poems

In keeping with its title, this ominous and energetic entry from Puhak (Guinevere in Baltimore) offers an uncertain view of the present and future. The poems, organized as a series of "portraits," resist despair by giving voice to things in hiding, or on the brink of oblivion. In "Portrait of the Artist as a 100-year-old House," the environment smells "more like scared/ wet dog, like back of mouth,/ like old apple core." In others, the artist likens her thoughts to a squirrel, "coiled and crouching," and speaks as a bog body, inviting the reader to unearth her from under the peat: "Search out my fingers/ under the turf's muck./ Stroke my hair,/ softer than the moss." Puhak also explores motherhood and the dangers of men. In "Portrait of the Artist in Labor," she lists harbingers: "The pills are the harbinger of the eyelid/ twitch. The boys piled in the car/ the harbinger of the rape kit." These poems are fierce and foreboding, proving poetry's revelatory power. (Oct.)

Nearly every poem in this National Poetry Series winner from Puhak (Guinevere in Baltimore) is titled with a close variant of the phrase "Portrait of the Artist," yet what widely different journeys each takes us on, from the first scares of motherhood ("A child too perfect// calls to the knife. Hallelujah the birthmark, the extra digit") to love ("I carried/ water for you, the one for whom the world's/ aqueducts/ were not conduit enough"). Puhak scores frissons with many of her unusual and striking comparisons ("your hidden musculature/ you're lashed to the mast of my bone-ship") and is not averse to addressing world problems; at a dinner party, "The guests arrive when the flames start./ We draw the curtains/ …While the city burns, while the algae blooms, while the oceans froth acrid." These poems share a deep curiosity about and connection to our world, good and bad, majestic and dystopian. Some are uplifting, while others deepen our pain about tragedies from shooter drills to ancestors' forced relocations. Yet even at their most troubling, the quirky humor provides some respite. VERDICT Though a few are not fully realized, in general these poems balance the dire and dystopian with the joyful and caring, inviting the reader to stay onboard for each new voyage. A collection that should not to be missed.--Doris Jean Lynch