Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems

by Connie Wanek, Ted Kooser (Foreword)

For decades a restorer of old homes, Connie Wanek shows us that poetry is everywhere, encountered as easily in the waterways, landscapes, and winters of Minnesota, as in the old roofs and darkened drawers of a home long uninhabited. Rival Gardens includes more than thirty unpublished poems, along with poems selected from three previous books—all in Wanek’s unmistakable plainspoken and elegant, unassuming and wise, observant and original. Many of her new poems focus on the garden, beginning with the Garden of Eden.

 

A deep feeling for family and for the losses and gains of growing into maturity mark the tone of Rival Gardens , with Wanek always attending to the telling detail and the natural world.

Genres: Poetry

204 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2016

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

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poet Connie Wanek is a recipient of the Willow Poetry Prize, the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize, and a Witter Bynner Fellowship at the Library of Congress. This new and selected poems edition is a compilation of her work from three previous books as well as new poems, introduced by the former American Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser.

Wanek's poems remind me not a little of Kooser in fact. There is a similar posture of modesty and good-nature at work as well as a focus on the rural as opposed to the urban. Both write of small towns and farms, the natural world (flowers, animals, gardens, etc.) and family. And like Kooser, Wanek is able to speak deeply to the epiphanies and rhythms of ordinary life...to focus on them with gentle yet precise attention and to wrestle existential truths from her wry observations.

Folks who have an affinity for the poems of Mary Oliver will find in these pages a similarly-inclined poet...with the notable exception being that Wanek's poems have more humans in them than Oliver usually includes. There is a more folksy warmth in Wanek's work that I find quite appealing, combined with a dexterous handling of metaphor:

Peaches

I have eaten peach after peach
without hesitation or apology, and each
was a disappointment. Outwardly
they looked ideal, smooth as a pony muzzle
or pool table felt, sunset colored,
and when I held them I sensed
either their heartbeats or my own.

I overbought, too, thinking how lovely
they looked together, a troupe of California peaches
visiting Minnesota in July, the only month
they'd find palatable. I wondered what exactly
I expected of them. Flavor, I suppose.

Or I thought the stone
might offer me I can't say what,
like tea leaves or a fortune cookie,
some hint of a changed life.
Still moist, still bearing a tassel of flesh,
the stone requests a sympathetic burial;
it believes that any amicable clay, even mine,
is suitable for resurrection.

[Danielle Robb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Connie Wanek's poetry truly spoke to me. She is an amazing poet and her poetry left me both smiling and tearing up.

[J Uribe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for someone who doesn't like poetry. I was surprised at how much enjoyment this book gave me, so much so that I bought it. I checked it out because of Ted Kooser. He enjoys Connie Wanek so I thought I might as well. All of Ted Kooser's books are poetry hater friendly. That is a weird way of putting it, I know but Connie Wanek's poetry is the same style as Ted Kooser....more of a story form, no rhyming. Another book in this style is Karen Hesse's Out Of The Dust.
This book is written in small story poem snippets and is perfect for busy people who love good writing but really don't have time for it.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful career spanning collection of poetry from a Midwestern poet much like Ted Kooser (who wrote the forward). Wanek's best poems often focus on tiny moments and the things we see everyday but do not focus on (e.g., a bulb of garlic, a game of Scrabble). Highly recommended.

[Tracy Youngblom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This represents an amazing body of work! Connie Wanek's poems are rich with details of daily life; they show how meaning comes from the ordinary. I especially loved the Mrs. God poems from the new poems section.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous.