Ice: Poems

by David Keplinger

In a careful examination of personal and collective histories, David Keplinger’s Ice  indexes the findings from memory’s slow melt—stories and faces we’ve forgotten, bones hidden in frost. “I am asking how much more / I have to learn from this,” Keplinger writes. “You are asking that same question.” In these poems, he turns to our predecessors for guidance in picking apart the forces that govern modernity—masculinity, power, knowledge, conquest. Cryptic visitants arrive in the form of Gilgamesh, “searching for a way to stay in pain forever”; a grandmother mending socks, “her face in the dark unchanging”; Emily Dickinson, lingering at her window; a lion cub, asleep in ice for millennia. With each comes a critique of the Anthropocene, our drive to possess the unpossessable. With each comes also the discovery of what—and who—we’ve harmed in the discovering. Ice shelves collapse. Climate change melts layers of permafrost to reveal a severed wolf’s head. A pair of grease-smudged reading glasses calls up a mother’s phantom. “I am sorry / for the parts you gave me / that I’ve misshapen,” Keplinger writes. So is there “a point to all this singing”? Our ancestors cannot answer. The wolf’s head can’t, either. But sometimes, “out of the snow of confusion,”  something  answers, “saying gorgeous things like yes.” And the flowers “open up / their small green trumpets anyway.”

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published August 8, 2023

Reviews

[Susan Urry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ice by David Keplinger showcases riveting poetry with exquisite writing and stunning themes that transport the reader to a frozen world where prehistoric animals buried in ice millenia ago are excavated and described in beautiful detail. Through his poetry, the author also takes you on a journey to excavate and unearth poignant experiences from the permafrost of his own past. Highly recommend for those seeking an experience that seamlessly blends the beauty of nature with the complexities of human existence. I recommend the book Ice for any poetry, history, or nature lover.

[Soula Kosti · Rating 4 out of 5]

”what I had been
one second ago,
had nothing to do with

what I was becoming
before my own eyes
now.”

Favorite poems:
- Near Yakutia
- Irises
- Ice Moons
- Sketch of Wings in Gorham’s Cave
- The Conger Ice Shelf Had Collapsed
- At Osip Mandelstam’s Memorial Statue in Voronezh
- Chameleon
- Mirror, On The Night of Your Passing
- Possess
- American Thanksgiving in Místek
- Reading Gilgamesh Before Going to Sleep

”Why must some sorrows go on forever”

[Elizabeth Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this collection and I know I'll be returning to it many times! A lot of his poems investigate the permeability of boundaries and being through the lens of arctic paleontology which I found rich and thought provoking.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How to hold the beautiful, at the moment of its startling?"

[chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The horses stand
in the shape of a T. One of the horses
rests her jaw onto the spine's aging curvature
of the other horse. Not to say
which is the tenderer. The hurt place
is simply where they meet. Their stillness
flawless. The sky a white glove.
-- "Two Horses in a Field"

[Miles Hazo · Rating 3 out of 5]

My personal favorites:

The Puppet Tiger That Masculinity Is
Rocker
Spartak the Lion Cub Lives Under the Permafrost
Come and See
Two Horses in a Field
Chameleon
The Future of Desire
American History in Mistek
Small Pink Reading Glasses
American Thanksgiving in Mistek
The Oar
Reading Light

[Cooch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good poems

This is an interesting collection. Keplinger is at his best when working with more recognisable forms. Sometimes experimentation seems to be more for experimentation 's sake, rather than for poetical reasons.

[Gillian Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this collection to be moving, challenging, and beautiful. From poems that take on topics of history, climate change, nature to those of personal reflection, fears, and memories, I was captivated. I dog-eared many poems to revisit in the future.

[Sofia Zapatero · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was the best book of poetry I’ve EVER read, inspired

[Karren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ice by David Keplinger is an exceptional book of poetry. I spent a lot of time studying this work and found it to be about legacy.

[chia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think I’m at the point in my life where I can fully understand all the things that I read.

[ProsePotts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, to be frozen in the permafrost. Leave me here.