Hartley Field

by Connie Wanek

The poems in Hartley Field are by turns witty and amusing, lyrical and moving. But always they are clear and -direct. Wanek writes clever, closely observed poems on subjects as diverse as "Butter" and "The Hammer," work which is in the tradition of Francis Ponge and Pablo Neruda. These are often humorous and are enormous fun to read. Similarly, a number of poems focus upon children’s games and activities ("Checkers" and "Jump Rope," among others), and explore them physically and psychologically. What is most remarkable about this collection is the consistent originality of the imagery and elegance of language. In the poem "Late September," we find "a plumed of smoke hand-feeding the wind." The object poem "Lemon" observes that the fruit has "bumpers on both ends like a Volkswagon." A racoon advancing into a dark yard is described as "a creature both manly and womanly/capable of force or seduction." Here is the first stanza of the elegiac "After Us." Rain is falling through the roof. And all that prospered under the sun the books that opened in the morning and closed at night, and all day turned their pages to the light. . . . Joyce Sutphen says of Wanek, "Nothing about what she says or sees is routine...(Hartley Field) is a book of in poem after poem, some ordinary object or event is split open with such keen tenderness that the heart is caught off guard." Connie Wanek was born in 1952 and lives in Duluth, Minnesota. She is the author of Bonfire , published in 1997 by New Rivers Press. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The Virginia Quarterly, Country Journal , and many other publications. She has been awarded fellowship support from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council and The Jerome Foundation.

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Connie Wanke was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In 1989 she moved with her family to Duluth, Minnesota where she now lives.

Her work appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Quarterly West, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, Missouri Review.

Wanek has published three books of poetry, and served as co-editor of the comprehensive historical anthology of Minnesota women poets, called To Sing Along the Way (New Rivers Press, 2006). Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States (2004–2006), named her a Witter Bynner Fellow of the Library of Congress for 2006.

Reviews

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second volume I've read by Connie Wanek, and it was just as wonderful as her more recent collection, "On Speaking Terms." While reading that book, I simply enjoyed getting a feel for her voice; this time, though, I found myself more aware of her ability to capture everyday images with such startling clarity.

Her similes, in particular, are astounding for their pitch-perfect language for whatever it is she's describing. For example, she compares an overripe raspberry to "a dress shoe, hanging from a white toe"; a day's opening and closing to a camera shutter: "mechanically, with more haste than necessary"; our birth to snow: "We fell into this life without a plan, the way snow pours out of a white sky taking its shape from everything it finds"; a full moon's path across the sky to "a car driving all night to cross the plains ahead of the snow"; and a scar from open-heart surgery to "the first furrow on the virgin prairie."

[Ann M]

I'm enjoying many of these poems.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure about this at first, but Wanek won me over.