A Real Time of It by Delehant, Sally (July 10, 2012) Paperback

by Sally Delehant

Poetry. "It's difficult to say just how one knows that a certain person's poems are the result of much hard work, and it's as difficult to say just how one knows that a writer took great pleasure in the act of composition. But we've all seen enough smug, dull poems come down the pike to know what lazy, bored poets produce, and so perhaps we assume diligence and enthusiasm simply by way of our own great pleasure in having worked through a particular poem or set of them."—Graham Foust

Unknown Binding

First published July 10, 2012

Reviews

[Philip Jenks · Rating 5 out of 5]

truth and honesty. the givenness of things is upended. Sometimes to look the Sublime askance, as an unsettling feeling sets in but not so overwhelmed as to absolutely crush. which is Good. and engagement with the World/Whirrld. brilliant.

I think something else I'd mention is the structure and imagery, the metaphor and simile, these they live with an integrity and feel familiar and never forced. Never. Organically present in the landscape of this world. I'm grateful to Sally Delehant for writing this and the edition is exquisitely produced by The Cultural Society.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled onto Sally Delehant's delightful Twitter account a little over three years ago, and from there went on to discover that she was an amazing poet and also that she had a book published. I immediately bought it and then found out from the book that it was one of only 250 published. This is one of those circumstances in life that feels perfectly serendipitous in retrospect, so perfect is the pairing between book and reader. Delehant's poems included here are intensely personal, achingly relatable, and invariably well-crafted and -structured. She orders and sections her poems here in such a way as to elicit the maximum emotional response, but to do so almost unconsciously, leading you from one poem to the next with an almost unnoticeable gracefulness and ending a section just where the added time to reflect will break your heart. The quality of work is so consistent and so high throughout that it's mostly a futile effort to name any poems as especially worthy, but an exception must be made for "Easter Sunday," which is one of the most heartcleavingly affecting works of art of any form that I've ever encountered; for the past three years, I've probably thought about it at least once every day.