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Winterkill
In Winterkill, Todd Davis, who, according to Gray’s Sporting Journal, “observes nature in the great tradition of Robert Frost, James Dickey, and Jim Harrison,” offers an unflinching portrait of the cycles of birth and death in the woods and streams of Pennsylvania, while never leaving behind the tragedies and joys of the human world. Fusing narrative and lyrical impulses, in his fifth book of poetry Davis seeks to address the living world through a lens of transformation. In poems of praise and sorrow that draw upon the classical Chinese rivers-and-mountains tradition, Davis chronicles the creatures of forest and sky, of streams and lakes, moving through cycles of fecundity and lack, paying witness to the fundamental processes of the earth that offer the possibility of regeneration, even resurrection. Meditations on subjects from native brook trout to the ants that scramble up a compost pile; from a young diabetic girl burning trash in a barrel to a neighbor’s denial of global warming; from an examination of the bone structure in a rabbit’s skull to a depiction of a boy who can name every bird by its far-off song, these are poems that both celebrate and lament the perfectly imperfect world that sustains us.
115 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 27, 2016
In his latest book of poetry, Todd Davis returns to the natural world, in an exploration of grief and hope. While narrative poetry often dominated his past collections, more lyrical works take center stage in Winterkill. Indeed, Davis's collection could be easily be seen as a collection of elegies, as we follow the narrator through both physical landscapes scarred by loss and memories full of both wonder and bereavement.
February 3, 2016
One can certainly understand why so many fine poets proclaim the voice of Todd Davis. Such diverse writers as Jim Harrison, Jane Hirshfield, Stephen Dunn, and Pattiann Rogers find in him a welcome clarity, directness, richness of images, and fullness of treatment. This reviewer would agree with all of that praise and see in common with these other writers a deep and sharp sense of Nature.
A perhaps unlikely comparison arrives between Todd Davis and America’s most noteworthy Nature author, Henry David Thoreau. For just as Thoreau captures the literal physical world of Walden Pond, Davis finds meaning in the life of Nature around him, from backyard deer, old fields, mountain streams. Both embrace a transcendence found in the natural world. In another fishing poem, “Signified” the poet is more direct in linking place, and memory with meaning:
When a trout leaps, unmoored by air, it can spit
the hook, unraveling meaning and remaking the time spent reading
the flow, determining which flies have hatched. Thankfully, one glides
into the net, as I search for the words to help remove the flattened barg
from memory’s sharp-toothed jaw.
However, the many way in which these two Nature writers differ, suggests the real character of Davis’ writing. When Thoreau’s brother John died suddenly it is said he worked out his grief by writing, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers describing their boating excursion together. And yet, in that book there is no sharing of grief; it reads like a travel journal and not a personal reflection.
Davis, on the other hand, seems a Thoreau if he had married and had children. He opens his relationships to others and us in personal ways and so reveals what it is like to be human today. That is his finest gift. The poem “The Last Time My Mother Lay Down with My Father” is wonderfully whole and full of tender emotion. The family has gathered at the father’s deathbed and is watchful when the mother acts:
she’d been singing to him, her face near to his,
and because none of us wanted it to end,
we helped her climb into bed next to him
where she lifted his hand to her chest
and closed her eyes.
Such deep essential writing is priceless. We go to Thoreau for Nature. We come to Davis for the whole essence of being alive. This is a fine book worth having and sharing.
(from my review for New York Journal of Books)
http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-...
A perhaps unlikely comparison arrives between Todd Davis and America’s most noteworthy Nature author, Henry David Thoreau. For just as Thoreau captures the literal physical world of Walden Pond, Davis finds meaning in the life of Nature around him, from backyard deer, old fields, mountain streams. Both embrace a transcendence found in the natural world. In another fishing poem, “Signified” the poet is more direct in linking place, and memory with meaning:
When a trout leaps, unmoored by air, it can spit
the hook, unraveling meaning and remaking the time spent reading
the flow, determining which flies have hatched. Thankfully, one glides
into the net, as I search for the words to help remove the flattened barg
from memory’s sharp-toothed jaw.
However, the many way in which these two Nature writers differ, suggests the real character of Davis’ writing. When Thoreau’s brother John died suddenly it is said he worked out his grief by writing, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers describing their boating excursion together. And yet, in that book there is no sharing of grief; it reads like a travel journal and not a personal reflection.
Davis, on the other hand, seems a Thoreau if he had married and had children. He opens his relationships to others and us in personal ways and so reveals what it is like to be human today. That is his finest gift. The poem “The Last Time My Mother Lay Down with My Father” is wonderfully whole and full of tender emotion. The family has gathered at the father’s deathbed and is watchful when the mother acts:
she’d been singing to him, her face near to his,
and because none of us wanted it to end,
we helped her climb into bed next to him
where she lifted his hand to her chest
and closed her eyes.
Such deep essential writing is priceless. We go to Thoreau for Nature. We come to Davis for the whole essence of being alive. This is a fine book worth having and sharing.
(from my review for New York Journal of Books)
http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews