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To Embroider the Ground with Prayer
To Embroider the Ground with Prayer is a portrait of poet Teresa J. Scollon’s several worlds, as she accompanies her father through his illness and death and records the richness of family and community life in her Michigan town. These poems enjoy reverence and irreverence in equal measure as grief appears side by side with playfulness and humor. Scollon employs a wide range of poetic styles and voices: elegies, narratives, and persona poems are organized in recursive circles that evoke family, village, local characters, and the author’s adult life beyond her hometown.
The collection begins with personal history and is rooted in a regional voice and focus, but Scollon skillfully transforms her experiences into larger concerns that resonate deeply and universally. Readers will get to know Scollon’s father, in fragile health but still so vital to those around him; trace Scollon’s many paths into and out of grief; and follow her travels as she confronts the pull of memory and once again forges her way in the external world. Throughout, Scollon records her understanding with fidelity, clarity, and reverence for story, and finds beauty in small everyday acts of devotion, patience, and humility. As Scollon writes, “To capture story is one way of giving thanks, of paying attention, to know where we are.”
Although this is her first full-length collection, Scollon’s stirring work is situated in the tradition of American poetry that includes the likes of Ruth Stone, Wendell Berry, Ted Kooser, James Wright, Carl Sandberg, and Edgar Lee Masters. Readers interested in contemporary poetry will be grateful for this profound collection.
Published by Wayne State University Press
The collection begins with personal history and is rooted in a regional voice and focus, but Scollon skillfully transforms her experiences into larger concerns that resonate deeply and universally. Readers will get to know Scollon’s father, in fragile health but still so vital to those around him; trace Scollon’s many paths into and out of grief; and follow her travels as she confronts the pull of memory and once again forges her way in the external world. Throughout, Scollon records her understanding with fidelity, clarity, and reverence for story, and finds beauty in small everyday acts of devotion, patience, and humility. As Scollon writes, “To capture story is one way of giving thanks, of paying attention, to know where we are.”
Although this is her first full-length collection, Scollon’s stirring work is situated in the tradition of American poetry that includes the likes of Ruth Stone, Wendell Berry, Ted Kooser, James Wright, Carl Sandberg, and Edgar Lee Masters. Readers interested in contemporary poetry will be grateful for this profound collection.
Published by Wayne State University Press
- GenresPoetry
104 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 4, 2025
You can read my full review at https://tristanfoster6.wordpress.com/...
March 13, 2012
I read this book in one sitting just letting each beautiful word wash over me. I am in awe of the author's talent and ability to create lovely stories with a few perfectly chosen words. How wonderful that this poetry is out in the world for everyone to experience.
The portrait the author paints of her father is touching, and shows the deep love and painful loss she felt for him. I was moved by the power of their relationship. Whether the father believed in heaven or hell, I am certain he is somewhere looking at this beautiful book with deep pride.
It is lovely, funny, poignant and touching. This is a book of poetry I highly recommend.
The portrait the author paints of her father is touching, and shows the deep love and painful loss she felt for him. I was moved by the power of their relationship. Whether the father believed in heaven or hell, I am certain he is somewhere looking at this beautiful book with deep pride.
It is lovely, funny, poignant and touching. This is a book of poetry I highly recommend.
December 8, 2013
Absolutely the most moving, accessible, precise, honest book of poems I have read in years. This book is 88 pages of poetry that brings the genre into any reader's hands. Clear and direct without being bland; mysterious without being obscure. Lovely imagery, moving insights, relatable loss...I can't say enough. The kind of book I'd give to a dear friend as a most sincere gift. Incredible.
March 8, 2013
My one star doesn't carry to all of the poems. One in particular about an aging farming father resonated with me.
October 1, 2012
Some of these poems are very moving.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews