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Practicing to Walk Like a Heron (Made in Michigan Writers Series) by Ridl, Jack (2013) Paperback
In "Practicing to Walk Like a Heron" multiple-award-winning Michigan poet Jack Ridl shares lines of well-earned wisdom in the face of a constantly changing world. The familiar comforts of life--a warm fire in winter, a lush garden in summer--become the settings for transcendent and universal truths in these poems, as moments of grief, sadness, and melancholy trigger a deeper appreciation for small but important joys. The simple clarity of Ridl's lines and diction make the poems accessible to all readers, but especially rewarding for those who appreciate carefully honed, masterful verse.Many of the poems take solace in nature--quiet deer outside in the woods, deep snow, a thrush's empty nest in the eaves--as well as man-made things in the world--a steamer trunk, glass jars, tea cups, and books piled high near an easy chair. Yet Ridl avoids becoming nostalgic or romantic in his surroundings, and shows that there is nothing easy in his celebration of topics like "The Letters," "But He Loved His Dog," "A Christmas List for Santa," and "The Enormous Mystery of Couples." An interlude of full-color pages divides Ridl's more personal poems with a section of circus-themed pieces, adding visions of elephants, trumpets, tents, sequins, and sideshows, and the uniquely travel-weary perspectives of jugglers, trapeze artists, roustabouts, and clowns." ""Practicing to Walk Like a Heron "unabashedly affirms the quirky and eccentric, the small and mundane, and the intellectual and experiential in life. This relatable and emotionally powerful volume will appeal to all poetry readers.
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published February 1, 2013
7 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Jack Ridl
40 books18 followersJack Ridl born on April the 10th of 1944, is an American poet, and was a professor of English at Hope College,
Ridl's father, Charles "Buzz" Ridl, coached basketball at Westminster College, Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh. Ridl graduated from Westminster College, Pennsylvania with a BA and M.Ed., in 1970. He lives in Laketown Township, Michigan, with his wife, Julie.
His work has appeared in LIT, The Georgia Review, FIELD, Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, The Denver Quarterly, Chelsea, Free Lunch, The Journal, Passages North, Dunes Review, and Poetry East. Hope College has named its Visiting Writers Series for him.
Ridl's father, Charles "Buzz" Ridl, coached basketball at Westminster College, Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh. Ridl graduated from Westminster College, Pennsylvania with a BA and M.Ed., in 1970. He lives in Laketown Township, Michigan, with his wife, Julie.
His work has appeared in LIT, The Georgia Review, FIELD, Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, The Denver Quarterly, Chelsea, Free Lunch, The Journal, Passages North, Dunes Review, and Poetry East. Hope College has named its Visiting Writers Series for him.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 24, 2013
If more poets wrote like Jack Ridl, more people would read poetry. Reading a collection of poems by Ridl, you feel as if you are sitting in his living room, or across the table at a bar, or roaming through a trail in the woods, just listening to him spin tales. The tales are not necessarily stories, although he does that as well.
Like many great poets, Ridl tells tales which make us see exactly what he sees, but in a whole new way. I let my two dogs out every morning, but after "The Dogs' Door Is at the Far End of the House," I'll never watch them go out the same way again. Like every dog owner, he watches them trudge into the morning heat or a drift of snow, day after day.
"I wonder if they wonder what waits
on the other side. They never complain
or balk. They walk, let go, find their
momentary stay against the coming day."
One of elements of Rid's poetry which differentiates him from other poets, is his humility. He is not trying to save the world through his poetry. He is not even trying to understand the world through his poetry. He is trying to live in the world through his poetry. As a result of this humble approach, he does indeed bring understanding and glimpses of salvation to all that is around us.
Throughout his other works, and this one is no different, Ridl also displays a welcome sense of humor. You can almost see him standing off in the corner with a wry grin on his face, watching something unfold. In "My Wife Has Sent Me An Email," we see a tender exchange of checking on the coffee supply at home and signing off with love.
"I am sitting in
our living room, laptop on my
lap. She is sitting in her office
upstairs. We are emailing
in our own home."
It is not a diatribe against the inhumanity of technology. It is someone chuckling to himself over his own use of it. His humor can be more straight forward, as in "'Moose. Indian.' --The last words of Henry David Thoreau," where he rethinks what those words could be.
"Why not 'The cabin was cold
but I got a book out of '? Or
...
"My god,
I kept track of everything except
my own pencil!'"
Ridl also captures those moments which we all know, but somehow they slip away. In "The Two Chairs in the Garden," he observes
"The obligatory nap has disappeared
into the light that falls after 4pm.
It is time
for the sweet blue of cornflower
the muted palette of mums. This
is something I love: the season
between season."
This volume is longer than some of Ridl's other collection, and the result is a fuller picture of his art and a greater context to reflect upon his work. It is divided into four sections, one of which, "Interlude: 'Hey Skinny, the Circus is in Town'," was published separately before as a chapbook. In the midst of these other poems, they take on a new color, which is why larger collections of poems are sometimes better than the one poem standing alone. They are likes songs on the albums of yesteryear, which we listened to because they were there and required attention. Those songs could stand alone, but they take on a new sound when listened within an album. Poetry can work in the same way, and Ridl's book is stronger because of its depth.
The sections reflect different ideas. The first section, "From Our House to Your House," is a return to his childhood, and especially seeking a connection with his father. In "The Enormous Mystery of Couples," he looks at relationships of different types. The final section, "The Hidden Permutations of Sorrow," focuses not simply on sorrow, but really, the hidden permutations of life.
Perhaps Ridl succeeds because he writes for everyone. The opening poem is "Write to Your Unknown Friends," so Ridl brings to life many of his unknown friends. Tanya, the single mom with three kids working at the post office. Ted, who sells cars and wishes those with fins were back in style. Ann, with the best perennial garden in town, who wears a hat wherever she goes.
In other words, Ridl is writing to everyone, not just other poets. He has done this throughout his career; in this volume, he excels at it.
Like many great poets, Ridl tells tales which make us see exactly what he sees, but in a whole new way. I let my two dogs out every morning, but after "The Dogs' Door Is at the Far End of the House," I'll never watch them go out the same way again. Like every dog owner, he watches them trudge into the morning heat or a drift of snow, day after day.
"I wonder if they wonder what waits
on the other side. They never complain
or balk. They walk, let go, find their
momentary stay against the coming day."
One of elements of Rid's poetry which differentiates him from other poets, is his humility. He is not trying to save the world through his poetry. He is not even trying to understand the world through his poetry. He is trying to live in the world through his poetry. As a result of this humble approach, he does indeed bring understanding and glimpses of salvation to all that is around us.
Throughout his other works, and this one is no different, Ridl also displays a welcome sense of humor. You can almost see him standing off in the corner with a wry grin on his face, watching something unfold. In "My Wife Has Sent Me An Email," we see a tender exchange of checking on the coffee supply at home and signing off with love.
"I am sitting in
our living room, laptop on my
lap. She is sitting in her office
upstairs. We are emailing
in our own home."
It is not a diatribe against the inhumanity of technology. It is someone chuckling to himself over his own use of it. His humor can be more straight forward, as in "'Moose. Indian.' --The last words of Henry David Thoreau," where he rethinks what those words could be.
"Why not 'The cabin was cold
but I got a book out of '? Or
...
"My god,
I kept track of everything except
my own pencil!'"
Ridl also captures those moments which we all know, but somehow they slip away. In "The Two Chairs in the Garden," he observes
"The obligatory nap has disappeared
into the light that falls after 4pm.
It is time
for the sweet blue of cornflower
the muted palette of mums. This
is something I love: the season
between season."
This volume is longer than some of Ridl's other collection, and the result is a fuller picture of his art and a greater context to reflect upon his work. It is divided into four sections, one of which, "Interlude: 'Hey Skinny, the Circus is in Town'," was published separately before as a chapbook. In the midst of these other poems, they take on a new color, which is why larger collections of poems are sometimes better than the one poem standing alone. They are likes songs on the albums of yesteryear, which we listened to because they were there and required attention. Those songs could stand alone, but they take on a new sound when listened within an album. Poetry can work in the same way, and Ridl's book is stronger because of its depth.
The sections reflect different ideas. The first section, "From Our House to Your House," is a return to his childhood, and especially seeking a connection with his father. In "The Enormous Mystery of Couples," he looks at relationships of different types. The final section, "The Hidden Permutations of Sorrow," focuses not simply on sorrow, but really, the hidden permutations of life.
Perhaps Ridl succeeds because he writes for everyone. The opening poem is "Write to Your Unknown Friends," so Ridl brings to life many of his unknown friends. Tanya, the single mom with three kids working at the post office. Ted, who sells cars and wishes those with fins were back in style. Ann, with the best perennial garden in town, who wears a hat wherever she goes.
In other words, Ridl is writing to everyone, not just other poets. He has done this throughout his career; in this volume, he excels at it.
January 18, 2023
Don’t get me wrong. I believe Ridl to be a talented writer, so my rating is purely based on my own taste. I did enjoy many of the poems, just not enough of them to go on and on about them. It’s not that I don’t enjoy plain speak or poems about the average events of an average day. Jane Kenyon, Ted Hughes, and many other poets I admire are masterful at capturing everyday magic. I received another book by Ridl for Christmas, so hope that one will win me over. It got a lot more ratings.
At first I was even less happy when I got to the circus poems in this book. I almost skipped them and did skim a bit. But it turned out I loved a couple of those. I have a soft spot for elephants, so I got a bit teary reading about chained, roughly handled, overworked Susie:
It ends
“….The handler
hooks the enormous clank of chain
to her leather harness, again
shouts, “Hunh, Susie, hunh,” and
she, with a slow wave of her crusty
ears, caked and sore from a thousand
bites, walks with the indifference
of sovereignty to the far end
of the tent, pulling the great pole up
and into place, the pole itself carrying
the sky and all its stars from the dust.”
At first I was even less happy when I got to the circus poems in this book. I almost skipped them and did skim a bit. But it turned out I loved a couple of those. I have a soft spot for elephants, so I got a bit teary reading about chained, roughly handled, overworked Susie:
It ends
“….The handler
hooks the enormous clank of chain
to her leather harness, again
shouts, “Hunh, Susie, hunh,” and
she, with a slow wave of her crusty
ears, caked and sore from a thousand
bites, walks with the indifference
of sovereignty to the far end
of the tent, pulling the great pole up
and into place, the pole itself carrying
the sky and all its stars from the dust.”
January 4, 2025
5/5
Jack Ridl's poems remind us we can do absolutely nothing at all and witness the abundance of magic and peace all around. Doing nothing may be the most important thing to do.
Jack Ridl's poems remind us we can do absolutely nothing at all and witness the abundance of magic and peace all around. Doing nothing may be the most important thing to do.
March 4, 2019
This is a book from a few years back. Ridl remains a poet comfortable with personal narratives and unafraid of nostalgia. His language is sparse and exact, his lines precise. Here's a little thing I wrote on this book and one by his student:
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
Read
May 7, 2022So glad I've discovered this poet
March 29, 2013
Jack Ridl is a poet from Michigan, the state in which I grew up, that I had never heard of before this. To me, his work has a strong regional feel to it. I found myself thinking "this is so Michigan." The quiet, rural life with your dogs, your cat, the weather. Ridl is retired and his life of watching what happens outside his windows reminds me very much of my parents' retirement, though theirs has been in Tennessee.
The book is divided into 4 sections. The second two were far less enjoyable to me, very flat, than the first two. The only section that departs from observations of everyday life is the third one "Interlude: Hey Skinny, the Circus is in Town!" As one might expect, it's about characters in a circus, but none of them lit up for me. They remained mundane. I was hoping for something livelier in part because the publisher saw fit to highlight this section by providing a color header graphic and title font throughout. It was special treatment for bland poems.
However, his treatment of everyday life is enjoyable, especially when observing the gift of long familiarity with his place and his wife. "Oh I Suppose" captures the general tenor of the poet's viewpoint of not quite becoming bored with the everyday miracles around us:
Oh I suppose God could be sitting in the sycamore,
a tree my grandmother called "a filthy thing."
And I suppose God could be all around us: between
that sycamore's branches, in the mortar holding
our house's bricks, in the electrons that type this,
within the current of the creek out back. And oh
I suppose you love me when I walk back in, and
when my jaw drops in a long dream. I suppose
the dog is happy and the window actually lets me
look out into our garden where a hummingbird
sits for, oh I suppose, a second or two, dips, then spins
to another blossom while the kingfisher soars just above
the creek, then settles on an overhanging branch, one in which
I suppose the cells are splitting into something we cannot know.
(And I, Jennifer, suppose that you can't mention God and kingfishers in a 14 line poem without harkening back to Hopkins' "Kingfishers Catch Fire.")
Gratitude for the simple facts of his life, despite the loss of his father and failing health one expects in aging, permeates the first two sections. One poem makes a direct association between the actions if his father and his wife's father in WWII with the peace they are enjoying in their later life. But nothing comes across as didactic. And as in the blase phrasing above, there is a good bit of humor. He remarks on receiving an email from his wife when they are simply in different rooms of the same house. In the book's title poem, he exaggerates walking across the room in such a matter as not to disturb anything in the room:
slowly set my foot on the dog-haired
carpet, pause, hold a half-note, lift
the left, head steady as a bell before
the ringer tugs the rope. On I walk,
the heron's mute way, across the
room, past my wife who glances
up, holds her slender hands
above the keys until I pass.
Though there's a bit of spring and fall, and the circus section is summer, the predominant season is winter in this collection. We are often looking out into a peaceful, snowy world. Cats are curled up asleep in various places in various poems. Retirement, repose, reflection.
As a reviewer, I'm a bit stuck for recommending this book. I would recommend the first two sections but not the last two. It would have been a better book had they stopped at page 80 in my opinion. But if you enjoy quiet reflections and observations, often with a dash of humor or irony, then get ahold of this for the first 80 pages. Others may also enjoy it for the strong northwoods feel to many of the poems, as I did.
The book is divided into 4 sections. The second two were far less enjoyable to me, very flat, than the first two. The only section that departs from observations of everyday life is the third one "Interlude: Hey Skinny, the Circus is in Town!" As one might expect, it's about characters in a circus, but none of them lit up for me. They remained mundane. I was hoping for something livelier in part because the publisher saw fit to highlight this section by providing a color header graphic and title font throughout. It was special treatment for bland poems.
However, his treatment of everyday life is enjoyable, especially when observing the gift of long familiarity with his place and his wife. "Oh I Suppose" captures the general tenor of the poet's viewpoint of not quite becoming bored with the everyday miracles around us:
Oh I suppose God could be sitting in the sycamore,
a tree my grandmother called "a filthy thing."
And I suppose God could be all around us: between
that sycamore's branches, in the mortar holding
our house's bricks, in the electrons that type this,
within the current of the creek out back. And oh
I suppose you love me when I walk back in, and
when my jaw drops in a long dream. I suppose
the dog is happy and the window actually lets me
look out into our garden where a hummingbird
sits for, oh I suppose, a second or two, dips, then spins
to another blossom while the kingfisher soars just above
the creek, then settles on an overhanging branch, one in which
I suppose the cells are splitting into something we cannot know.
(And I, Jennifer, suppose that you can't mention God and kingfishers in a 14 line poem without harkening back to Hopkins' "Kingfishers Catch Fire.")
Gratitude for the simple facts of his life, despite the loss of his father and failing health one expects in aging, permeates the first two sections. One poem makes a direct association between the actions if his father and his wife's father in WWII with the peace they are enjoying in their later life. But nothing comes across as didactic. And as in the blase phrasing above, there is a good bit of humor. He remarks on receiving an email from his wife when they are simply in different rooms of the same house. In the book's title poem, he exaggerates walking across the room in such a matter as not to disturb anything in the room:
slowly set my foot on the dog-haired
carpet, pause, hold a half-note, lift
the left, head steady as a bell before
the ringer tugs the rope. On I walk,
the heron's mute way, across the
room, past my wife who glances
up, holds her slender hands
above the keys until I pass.
Though there's a bit of spring and fall, and the circus section is summer, the predominant season is winter in this collection. We are often looking out into a peaceful, snowy world. Cats are curled up asleep in various places in various poems. Retirement, repose, reflection.
As a reviewer, I'm a bit stuck for recommending this book. I would recommend the first two sections but not the last two. It would have been a better book had they stopped at page 80 in my opinion. But if you enjoy quiet reflections and observations, often with a dash of humor or irony, then get ahold of this for the first 80 pages. Others may also enjoy it for the strong northwoods feel to many of the poems, as I did.
July 12, 2013
I loved settling down with this book every morning for several weeks, using it as my inspirational reading for the day. I met the author several years ago and loved listening to him read from his work. He has written one of my favorite poems, one I read at my daughter's wedding, which I quote from in this blog post:http://www.shirleyshowalter.com/2010/...
The poems that penetrated my mind and spirit were the quiet ones about everyday life full of images of the past and present: an old man who asked a kid to look at his hands,a Plymouth Fury with whitewalls and a vinyl top,coffee, cats, yearling, dog.
Two poems about herons, the title poem on p. 49, and the final poem on p. 158, tether the poems to the earth by practicing to walk like a heron, and finally allow them to fly away, as in the final image: "We watch/the sky, hoping to catch her great/feathered cross moving above the trees."
The circus section was the only one that dragged for me, but that is because I don't carry the same fascination with the circus many others have. And I found these poems different in style and tone from the others.
Over all, a lovely, lovely book. One I will come back to often.
The poems that penetrated my mind and spirit were the quiet ones about everyday life full of images of the past and present: an old man who asked a kid to look at his hands,a Plymouth Fury with whitewalls and a vinyl top,coffee, cats, yearling, dog.
Two poems about herons, the title poem on p. 49, and the final poem on p. 158, tether the poems to the earth by practicing to walk like a heron, and finally allow them to fly away, as in the final image: "We watch/the sky, hoping to catch her great/feathered cross moving above the trees."
The circus section was the only one that dragged for me, but that is because I don't carry the same fascination with the circus many others have. And I found these poems different in style and tone from the others.
Over all, a lovely, lovely book. One I will come back to often.
April 27, 2013
I am a long-time fan of the poetry of Jack Ridl. I have enjoyed every one of his publications, but none more than Practicing to Walk Like a Heron. These are poems written from the soul; profound, rhythmical, wonderful! Bravo!!
July 13, 2013
I love Jack Ridl's poems--for their plain spoken, lyric vision; their joy in form and in sound play. Practicing...., however, feels too long as books of poems (it weighs in well over 120 pages) and it would have been a stronger book had some of the poems been trimmed from it.
February 22, 2013
These poems are an affirmation of the goodness of heart break-- of the sigh of relief after weeping-- of the joy of living. Jack Ridl is a master of the craft and this book proves it.
March 25, 2013
Accessible, intimate and human. A true soul read.
July 11, 2013
I can't wait to read this. A new Jack Ridl poetry book is something to celebrate.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews