Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced

by Catherine Barnett

The family response to the sudden deaths of the speaker's two young nieces is at the center of Catherine Barnett's award-winning first collection. This series of elegies records the transit of grief, observing with an unflinching eye how a singular traumatic event can permanently alter our understanding of time, danger, the material world and family. Marked by clarity and restraint, these lyric poems narrate a suspenseful, wrenching story that explores the depths and limits of empathy. “Living Room Altar”

Except for the shirt pulled from the ocean,
except for her hands, which keep folding the shirt,
except for her body, which once held their bodies,

my sister wants everything back now—

If there were a god who could out of empty shells
carried by waves to shore
make amends—

If the ocean saved in a jar
could keep from turning to salt—

She’s hearing

bird calling to bird,
cat outside the door,
thorn of the blackberry against the trellis. "These heart-breaking poems of an all-too-human life stay as absolute as the determined craft which made them. There is finally neither irony nor simple despair in what they record. Rather, it is the far deeper response of witness, of recognizing what must be acknowledged and of having the courage and the care to say so." —Robert Creeley

Genres: Poetry, Grief

80 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

About the author

Catherine Barnett is the author of four poetry collections, including Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space, Human Hours, winner of the Believer Book Award, and The Game of Boxes, winner of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[el · Rating 3 out of 5]

i feel pretty lukewarm about this collection's execution, probably because it's so minimalist in nature. regardless, this is a great place to look for meditations on grief/time/longing, if those are subjects that call to you.

[Michael Brockley · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a grief reserved for those who mourn the loss of a loved one who died too young. Dying without the seminal adventure, the chance to vie for the penultimate trophy, the experience of the many-splendored thing. Catherine Barnett investigates this grief in INTO PERFECT SPHERES SUCH HOLES ARE PIERCED. Poems about the deaths of the author's nieces. Such grief wends into an afternoon at Dinosaur Park and while picking sea glass for every day of the week. Grief is the companion. While a child learns to write and, of course, the contemplation of an indifferent God. Sometimes it's wanting what can't be had. Sometimes it's never having what was wanted so dearly.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is one of my favorite books of poetry in the last few years.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful meditations on grief and longing, what it does to the human heart. Barnett's craft is refined and clean; her words are honest. The control and pacing of her lines/stanzas/words is flawless. These poems are ones to be read aloud, to savor, to sit down with when a quiet reminder that the transient human life can be graspable, if only for a moment, is needed. Barnett's metaphors are natural and yet astounding. Barnett uses things to ground her poems in a way that opens them up as the "perfect spheres" with "such [empty, beautiful] holes" they are, astonishments we get to hold. One of my new-favorite collections.

[Margie Jimenez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a gem! I've never been a fan of poetry but I had the privilege to listen to these elegies read by the author herself and I was blown away. Her use of language, symbolism, expressions and the like convey deep and profound emotions that you experience along with her. I related to it because it's a book written from an experience of grief and it's so beautifully written. I highly recommend everyone read it. Whether you're a poetry aficionado or not I think you'll agree that it's an excellent read.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subdued yet incredibly moving poems about the narrator's loss of her young nieces and how the family pieces together their grief. The subject matter was incredibly heavy, yet the poet neither loses herself in the mire, nor provides some sort of short-cut to healing.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Out of grief--
ire,
fig,
fire."

So sad and clear and good. This book-length elegy was written after Barnett's sisters' children died.

[Lorene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tight and powerful lyrics; devastating topic.

[Louie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing book of poetry!

[Kat Stromquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly depressing -- really put my personal problems in perspective, though.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, haunting work focused on loss and innocence. Each poem feels like a rounded stone, heavy, still, powerful.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking.

[Avienda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this book via some of the author's more current work and picked it up on a whim. Although the poems are good, they are very far in tone and subject from what originally sparked my interest.

That said, personally it felt good to pick up a good of poems and to be able to read in these intense little spurts. There was so much sadness and yet an eye forward to the future in these poems. Looking forward to reading more of the author's more current works.

[Suzan Lemont · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little volume of poetry blindsided me with it's raw channeling of grief into simple (but not simplistic) poems of bewilderment, longing, and the excruciating act of continuing to breathe after loved ones are no longer present. I found it at a secondhand shop for 50¢. Great gifts sometimes arrive in unexpected packages.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sequence of narrative anecdotes sharply scaled into details, drawn into a single image, often, intensifying the grief-alteration to a single family tragedy such that they seem ur-poems, the persons both in this world, and not.

[Bryan Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this collection,
after I'd encountered,
the author's later works.
And, although the precision is there,
and the clever alliteration,
dips in and out,
it is clear that,
as she wrote more,
lived more,
learned more -
she became,
a better poet.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've ready very few perfect books of poetry in my life and this is one of them. It's like glass - beautiful and delicate, but the poems cut you deep. This is an incredible book of elegies.

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stark, brutal haunting images of a mother and family who mourn the loss of children. Wow!

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing, and thoughtful poetry. It was a little hard for me to grasp, but I'm not too adept at poetry.

[Aurora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I inhaled this. I shouldn’t have. I should have taken breaks. My heart is broken for a tragedy 20 years old.

[Dean Oken · Rating 5 out of 5]

grief is another species of bird

[Chanel Earl]

Lovely poems, and unlike many thematic collections, I was able to figure out what they all had in common without looking to outside sources.

I am still thinking about the repetition of bird imagery and what it means.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Return, II

My brother thinks it's best to distract my sister,
not ask her about longing and its dirty tricks,
its flirty tricks, her girls

oh, hiding under the sheet waiting to be found,
digging ditches in the dirt,
blowing out the candles -

He holds her up, his arm over her shoulders
so she won't see the eyelashes they leave there,
for luck, like she taught them,
for making wishes that can't be spoken aloud

but I know he hears them,
as she does,
asking the same thing again -

come with us-- come with us--

[john steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

tender and inventive. the theme got a little old, but it was consistent throughout.

[Meen]

The title, the title. It stopped me cold as I scrolled down my update feed. Thanks Shell!

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read: November 11, 2014
Second read: July 19, 2020, Sunday

[Wendy L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems in this book will resonate for a lifetime. Beautiful images. One of my all time favorite books of poetry.

[Anthony Lince · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of melancholic poems that deal with themes of loss. Some of them really pulled me in, but I found others to not be all that engaging.