Field Folly Snow

by Cecily Parks

The poems in this collection are meditations on the natural world, written from the perspective of what Li-Young Lee has aptly termed "a passionate interiority." The history and geography of the American West inspire many of the poems' investigations of the environment and the role of the individual in relation to that environment. In Cecily Parks's landscape made strange by human consciousness, being lost is a requirement, though not a guarantee, of being found.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published February 29, 2008

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another from the VQR Poetry Series family. Cecily's poems are letters to the world in the best sense, inhabiting the wide expanse of the American West with all the poetic qualities that an inhabitant who would last there would need: toughness, terseness, and elemental alertness. I mean the careful eye of a sky-watcher, a change predictor, adept at catching incremental differences. My favorite: "Folly" in both its versions.

[Abeer Hoque · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually read poetry books in pieces, here and there. But I wanted to do something different this time, be involved, consumed with one poet's perspective. Cecily's debut book of poems are great for that because she has such a gift of imagery and feeling. The poems are set in the great west and rooted in river and ground. They have a sense of flight and wildness and languishing, not quite human but deeply so, at the same time. Her language, grammar, and pace are natural, astonishing, right. And she does marvelous things with alliteration and internal rhyme so it's a musical treat to read the poems out loud.

Here are just a few of the many lines I had to write down in glee:
I could grow old again
my one room of world
and waited for the click that means the safety is off
be the only/hovering thing
unworried/love
I wanted it (happiness, I mean)
this is a kind of love, a state of need
I'm shaped like invitation
to be water bending
to be the next verse
I am the instrument of your intensity
Shake me/something fierce and I will be the figure of what you did

I didn't understand the Woman Homesteader poems, which seemed too spare and disjoint to give me more than a vague sense of season and isolation. But there were a dozen other poems I read and reread with pleasure. My favourites included "Luna Moth" "The Minister's Bad Wayward Girl" "Self Portrait as a Seismograph" "the Widows of Pepacton Reservoir" "Beast-Lover Variations" and "A First Warning to the Eel Fisherman." The conjoined words in "Pillow with Boy and Fungus" were fabulous as were all the non-verbs used as verbs in "One Could Peach."

I'm looking forward to more.

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

While on occasion the poems become frustratingly unclear, this collection overall does well. When the tendency to avoid clarity creeps in you often feel close to getting it but something--the language or the abrupt, disjointed sentences keep you away--it has the feel of many of the lyrics of the 80s songs by Duran Duran and the Fixx, the words kind of make sense but they don't really give you something solid.

The section 'Letters of a Woman Homesteader' is a great idea that is wonderfully executed, with the exception of a few times when that pathological cryptic quality appears. In other areas of the book, Parks displays a wonderful descriptive quality. Frequently she succeeds in making an interseting poem really ascend based on one strikingly good line as in 'Self Portrait as Seismograph' (Shake me something fierce and I will be the figure of what you did) or 'The Wish for a Field' which is only one line long.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good, but the poems of address start to feel more like a crutch than a consistency for the book to elaborate on. Perhaps what I don't see right now is how those poems connect with the centerpiece of the book, "Letters of a Woman Homesteader." Without a doubt, though, "Tecumseh and Ulysses and How Were Those for Names" is incredible. INCREDIBLE!

[Jason Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned of this poetry book recently from a teaching pedagogy workshop I participate in. I love how Parks' use of space controls the tempo of her pieces and evokes emotion. I don't normally read poetry for pleasure, but this was one I really enjoyed.

[Jake Adam]

I'm not quite finished yet, but this is one where I wish I had 4.5 stars.

[Sarah Green]

mmmm!

[Gary McDowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Devin recommended this.

[Amie Whittemore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cecily Parks is a wonderfully talented poet, whose mind and heart meet in the page in surprise and beauty. Read her work.