Feeler

by Heather McHugh

Since Heather McHugh first began publishing her poems in 1968, poetry readers have marveled at the immensity and range of her gift. There seems to be nothing that McHugh can’t do with words and do with high wit and sonic brilliance. In her chapbook  Feeler , McHugh takes on the fraught subject of empathy―how much we feel, and do, for the afflicted. It also addresses the relation between thought and “Nowadays I cannot tell/ the two can’t feel things thoughtlessly/or think things up without emotion.”   As with only the very best poets, McHugh seamlessly combines thought and feeling, in poems that are entertaining and profound.

40 pages, Paperback

Published November 19, 2019

Reviews

[Caitlin]

Feeler is very short, a poetics of the quotidian (including small and petty feelings, turned poetic) that explores the natural world and its interactions with us along with our interactions with each other. It feels, at times, like a relic from a time before COVID ("The Truly Screaming Baby": we've all seen it, before COVID, but now who knows what's going to happen to transit), but it's more a bittersweet reminder than an out of place remark.

Short, intense, and very much a poetics of the quotidian.