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Dialogues with Rising Tides
In Kelli Russell Agodon’s fourth collection, each poem facilitates a humane and honest conversation with the forces that threaten to take us under. The anxieties and heartbreaks of life―including environmental collapse, cruel politics, and the persistent specter of suicide―are met with emotional vulnerability and darkly sparkling humor. Dialogues with Rising Tides does not answer, This or that? It passionately exclaims, And also! Even in the midst of great difficulty, radiant wonders are illuminated at every turn.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 2021
12 people are currently reading
962 people want to read
About the author
Kelli Russell Agodon
16 books180 followersKelli Russell Agodon is a prize-winning poet, writer, and editor from the Northwest.
Kelli Russell Agodon’s newest book is Dialogues with Rising Tides from Copper Canyon Press. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press as well as the Co-Director of Poets on the Coast: A Weekend Retreat for Women. Her last book, Hourglass Museum, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and shortlisted for the Julie Suk Poetry Prize. She is the author of Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press, 2010), Winner of the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Prize in Poetry, and a Finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She is also the author of Small Knots (2004) and the chapbook, Geography (2003). She co-edited the first eBook anthology of contemporary women’s poetry, Fire On Her Tongue, and recently published The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice, a book of poetry writing exercises she coauthored with Martha Silano.
She’s received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, James Hearst Poetry Prize, Artist Trust, and the Puffin Foundation. Agodon lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State on traditional land of the Chimacum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and Suquamish people where she is an avid paddleboarder and hiker. She serves on the poetry faculty at the Rainier Writing Workshop, a low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.
She writes about living and writing creatively on her blog, Book of Kells at: www.ofkells.blogspot.com
Visit her at www.agodon.com or on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/agodon
Twitter: @kelliagodon
Instagram: @kelliagodon
Or write to her directly at: kelli (at) agodon.com
For more information on Kelli, please visit: www.agodon.com
Kelli Russell Agodon’s newest book is Dialogues with Rising Tides from Copper Canyon Press. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press as well as the Co-Director of Poets on the Coast: A Weekend Retreat for Women. Her last book, Hourglass Museum, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and shortlisted for the Julie Suk Poetry Prize. She is the author of Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press, 2010), Winner of the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Prize in Poetry, and a Finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She is also the author of Small Knots (2004) and the chapbook, Geography (2003). She co-edited the first eBook anthology of contemporary women’s poetry, Fire On Her Tongue, and recently published The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice, a book of poetry writing exercises she coauthored with Martha Silano.
She’s received awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, James Hearst Poetry Prize, Artist Trust, and the Puffin Foundation. Agodon lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State on traditional land of the Chimacum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and Suquamish people where she is an avid paddleboarder and hiker. She serves on the poetry faculty at the Rainier Writing Workshop, a low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.
She writes about living and writing creatively on her blog, Book of Kells at: www.ofkells.blogspot.com
Visit her at www.agodon.com or on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/agodon
Twitter: @kelliagodon
Instagram: @kelliagodon
Or write to her directly at: kelli (at) agodon.com
For more information on Kelli, please visit: www.agodon.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
September 19, 2021
“The World Owes Me”…..
….”nothing”
The emotional impact that these poems stimulated were powerful ….. gratifying, beautiful ….. weepy ….. symbolic …. reveling wounds and scars …. metaphors …..
Touching on a little of everything……
Bravery, truth, anxiety, heartbreak, death, life, hunger, memories, emptiness, mountaintops, depression, loss, women, postpartum, suicide, family, pleasure, humor, lovers, wounds, rosemary, basil, silence, touch, fear, sunsets, smog, tomorrow, childhood, danger, drawbacks, saying no, saying yes, choices, selfishness, grace, knowing and not knowing, anger, regret, cruelty, relationship, joking, mornings, murder, crying, betrayal, hesitation, ego, rain, thrills, snacks, music, books, lilies, pain, catastrophe, argyle socks, marriage, suffering, water, history, laughter, complaints, damaged, vibrations, vegan pizza, lessons, songs, honeybees, desire, sex toys, tenderness and kindness, mirrors, honesty, leaving, jogging, fireworks, cinnamon, dancing, checkers, shame, searching, sinking, security, miracles, cities, faith, brokenness, entanglement, poets, America, happiness, perfection, judgments, secrets, understanding,
wi-fi, moisturizer, insomnia, blame, optimism, reflections, marshmallows, strangers,
coffee, thankfulness, climate change, home, trust, antiques,
pretending, celebrating, sacredness, wildfires, wildflowers, wild,
beliefs, Guardian Angels, ….
motion of Earth’s tides.
Excerpts….
“When my therapist tells me my fathers trauma has been transferred to me, I think…..”
….”how long he has been missing from the planet, still part of the seawater his ashes move through the Pacific and as she talks, I think of how the sky never lets me down— when I look up, there is always a cloud to study,…..”
“The Sun Doesn’t Know It’s A Star”…..
…..”We live in a world where every season begins with a bullet exiting a shadow and someone praying for her lilacs, for her honeysuckle to take root. It’s 100° in the shade and the weather argues with itself over who has the better candidate—
stop, you’re both wrong, the sky wins by a meteor shower. The stars aren’t watching television tonight, they are out waltzing through modern galaxies, a ballroom of ghosts where everything is about daybreak and dazzle, how much moondust will trail into the house. Somewhere between ego and starshine, we lost our hatbox of kindness, maybe we stored it in the back closet because fear seemed much more dramatic on the living-room table. And we wonder why we think our neighbor’s spy and everyone is so on edge.
Some days the stranger planting honeysuckle to stabilize the cliff leans too far into the galaxy and we fall into her optimism. Trust what you don’t know, like the honeybees that rise from the heart of the canyon, watch them like small sun’s circling the slight blossoms, Watch them slide in, knowing even A small amount of nectar is a greater sum than none”.
The older I get, the more I’m beginning to understand why reading a poem is part a learned — a precious skillful technique and part our own attitude.
But I admire people who read poetry more often than I do. I appreciate that there is a certain amount of comfortableness with ‘not assuming’ to understand everything—
I enjoyed watching my own mind — embracing ambiguity— while reading these poems — pushing words of beyond their literal meaning—looking at the different ways I connected or not.
I’m more comfortable with reading for information, for instruction, and with good old fashion storytelling…..
but I’m finally pass the age - or worries - that reading poetry is torment.
e.e. Cummings was a poet that I genuinely loved —
but -I don’t gravitate towards poetry often - but when I do it’s an exhilarating experience …..
…..”Dialogues With Rising Tides” was just that…..
“an exhilarating experience”!
Thank you to the author: Kelli
Russel Agodon….
and to Goodreads author &
friend — Julie Christine Johnson — for bringing this book to my attention.
….”nothing”
The emotional impact that these poems stimulated were powerful ….. gratifying, beautiful ….. weepy ….. symbolic …. reveling wounds and scars …. metaphors …..
Touching on a little of everything……
Bravery, truth, anxiety, heartbreak, death, life, hunger, memories, emptiness, mountaintops, depression, loss, women, postpartum, suicide, family, pleasure, humor, lovers, wounds, rosemary, basil, silence, touch, fear, sunsets, smog, tomorrow, childhood, danger, drawbacks, saying no, saying yes, choices, selfishness, grace, knowing and not knowing, anger, regret, cruelty, relationship, joking, mornings, murder, crying, betrayal, hesitation, ego, rain, thrills, snacks, music, books, lilies, pain, catastrophe, argyle socks, marriage, suffering, water, history, laughter, complaints, damaged, vibrations, vegan pizza, lessons, songs, honeybees, desire, sex toys, tenderness and kindness, mirrors, honesty, leaving, jogging, fireworks, cinnamon, dancing, checkers, shame, searching, sinking, security, miracles, cities, faith, brokenness, entanglement, poets, America, happiness, perfection, judgments, secrets, understanding,
wi-fi, moisturizer, insomnia, blame, optimism, reflections, marshmallows, strangers,
coffee, thankfulness, climate change, home, trust, antiques,
pretending, celebrating, sacredness, wildfires, wildflowers, wild,
beliefs, Guardian Angels, ….
motion of Earth’s tides.
Excerpts….
“When my therapist tells me my fathers trauma has been transferred to me, I think…..”
….”how long he has been missing from the planet, still part of the seawater his ashes move through the Pacific and as she talks, I think of how the sky never lets me down— when I look up, there is always a cloud to study,…..”
“The Sun Doesn’t Know It’s A Star”…..
…..”We live in a world where every season begins with a bullet exiting a shadow and someone praying for her lilacs, for her honeysuckle to take root. It’s 100° in the shade and the weather argues with itself over who has the better candidate—
stop, you’re both wrong, the sky wins by a meteor shower. The stars aren’t watching television tonight, they are out waltzing through modern galaxies, a ballroom of ghosts where everything is about daybreak and dazzle, how much moondust will trail into the house. Somewhere between ego and starshine, we lost our hatbox of kindness, maybe we stored it in the back closet because fear seemed much more dramatic on the living-room table. And we wonder why we think our neighbor’s spy and everyone is so on edge.
Some days the stranger planting honeysuckle to stabilize the cliff leans too far into the galaxy and we fall into her optimism. Trust what you don’t know, like the honeybees that rise from the heart of the canyon, watch them like small sun’s circling the slight blossoms, Watch them slide in, knowing even A small amount of nectar is a greater sum than none”.
The older I get, the more I’m beginning to understand why reading a poem is part a learned — a precious skillful technique and part our own attitude.
But I admire people who read poetry more often than I do. I appreciate that there is a certain amount of comfortableness with ‘not assuming’ to understand everything—
I enjoyed watching my own mind — embracing ambiguity— while reading these poems — pushing words of beyond their literal meaning—looking at the different ways I connected or not.
I’m more comfortable with reading for information, for instruction, and with good old fashion storytelling…..
but I’m finally pass the age - or worries - that reading poetry is torment.
e.e. Cummings was a poet that I genuinely loved —
but -I don’t gravitate towards poetry often - but when I do it’s an exhilarating experience …..
…..”Dialogues With Rising Tides” was just that…..
“an exhilarating experience”!
Thank you to the author: Kelli
Russel Agodon….
and to Goodreads author &
friend — Julie Christine Johnson — for bringing this book to my attention.
September 14, 2021
I read poetry to be soothed or inspired, to find solace in images and emotions, to learn how to use the same language in new and powerful ways. I am often moved to tears by a visceral connection with a line, a euphony, or an image. But it's a rare poet whose voice I can hear and feel melding with my own, as if the poet were writing from inside my soul. Kelli Russell Agodon is just such a poet.
It's so tiring
how every day is also a miracle
Capturing the existential anxieties of a suffering earth, a family legacy of suicide, the disappointment of love, Agodon illuminates them with precise moments of humor, tenderness, exasperation, and grace.
April is not the cruelest month,
but the cruelest barista
who didn't smile back,
who misspelled my name
and rolled her eyes
when she thought customers
weren't watching.
Her poetry is an invitation to deep awareness, to forgiveness, to longing.
I don't need notification of who
liked my post, how many people
found my review helpful, but give me
a minute of being the hero
to an injured waxwing, the lost
dog, or to hold the sweet sea
of the seabirds when the plastic caps
wash up, a wet god trying to spit out
the seeds.
Dialogues with Rising Tides is a sensual, direct, sweet and soulful collection that resonated deeply with this reader. All hearts and admiration. I loved each and every poem.
Sometimes after I stop crying, the moon
places its hand around my hips—
We're cool, I say and roll over
to my other lover, pillow,
my other lover, murmur my other
lover—a newly discovered word.
It's so tiring
how every day is also a miracle
Capturing the existential anxieties of a suffering earth, a family legacy of suicide, the disappointment of love, Agodon illuminates them with precise moments of humor, tenderness, exasperation, and grace.
April is not the cruelest month,
but the cruelest barista
who didn't smile back,
who misspelled my name
and rolled her eyes
when she thought customers
weren't watching.
Her poetry is an invitation to deep awareness, to forgiveness, to longing.
I don't need notification of who
liked my post, how many people
found my review helpful, but give me
a minute of being the hero
to an injured waxwing, the lost
dog, or to hold the sweet sea
of the seabirds when the plastic caps
wash up, a wet god trying to spit out
the seeds.
Dialogues with Rising Tides is a sensual, direct, sweet and soulful collection that resonated deeply with this reader. All hearts and admiration. I loved each and every poem.
Sometimes after I stop crying, the moon
places its hand around my hips—
We're cool, I say and roll over
to my other lover, pillow,
my other lover, murmur my other
lover—a newly discovered word.
June 9, 2021
OMFG and Holy F*cking Keeeeryst! Agodon's 4th collection is a tsunami & a tidal wave of a book. From the first line of the first poem ("If we never have enough love, we have more than most.") to the last line of the final poem ("... the best advice sang hopeful from the lost/sparrow on the pine beam, struggling but able / to fly, wingbeats of Morse code"), this book is an f-ing tour de force. I give it 10 stars.
May 28, 2021
Holy %$*!@, this is a great book of poems.
May 16, 2021
"Time is a long sunrise where we wait for our halos"
I was already a big fan of her previous books, but now Kelli Russell Agodon has written the definitive Kelli Russell Agodon Book. Powerful and delicate poems that are as delicious as their titles
and with titles like
"We Could Go On Indefinitely Being Swept Off Our Feet"
"Getting an IUD on the Day of 45's Inauguration"
"To Help with Climate Change, We Buy Rechargeable Sex Toys"
"The Sun Doesn't Know It's a Star"
that's saying a lot.
I was already a big fan of her previous books, but now Kelli Russell Agodon has written the definitive Kelli Russell Agodon Book. Powerful and delicate poems that are as delicious as their titles
and with titles like
"We Could Go On Indefinitely Being Swept Off Our Feet"
"Getting an IUD on the Day of 45's Inauguration"
"To Help with Climate Change, We Buy Rechargeable Sex Toys"
"The Sun Doesn't Know It's a Star"
that's saying a lot.
July 2, 2021
I appreciate the agency in these poems, and the exploration inward and outward. Some of my favorite lines:
you will be connected to people who make your eyes roll.
when I stumbled across the sand I learned to love the sand,
If I could be any age, I’d be the heartbeat just before the butter melts,
I am holding the three stars we always talk about and they are not even burning my palm.
Our hands on the heart of the planet, turning the switch to OFF.
you will be connected to people who make your eyes roll.
when I stumbled across the sand I learned to love the sand,
If I could be any age, I’d be the heartbeat just before the butter melts,
I am holding the three stars we always talk about and they are not even burning my palm.
Our hands on the heart of the planet, turning the switch to OFF.
May 8, 2021
I wanted to both devour it and linger over every poem.
I enjoyed every moment in these evocative and engaging pages. This is a very strong collection, each poem felt like the best one as I moved through the book.
I enjoyed every moment in these evocative and engaging pages. This is a very strong collection, each poem felt like the best one as I moved through the book.
June 24, 2021
Another fabulous book of poems by a poet of great compassion and honesty. So thankful Kelli Russell Agodon is writing her poems!
July 28, 2021
"Night is the ash that covers the light. Lessons/ in disappearing. We keep losing/ glaciers/ entire species of birds/ honeybees/ ourselves. For the last year I've wanted to undo everything,/ unsew the haze from my eyelids." A deeply affecting collection from Kelli Russell Agodon, who deploys words in the most elegant and unforgettable ways to understand our responsibilities, today and in general.
May 10, 2021
Smart, quirky and artful, I adored this book and think it will have much to teach me about the art of poetry on re-reading.
January 22, 2022
"If I could be any age,
I'd be the heartbeat just before
the butter melts"
I'd be the heartbeat just before
the butter melts"
October 27, 2021
I am dazzled. It is not often I find a poet that I love, and to find in this book a poet whose every single poem speaks to me is .... well I'm not sure I have the word for it. Let me just say that once I started reading and even before I finished I went online and ordered every book by her that I could find.
And in addition to this chapbook being something I am and will read again and again, it makes me want to write. To Mary Reufle and Amy Hempel, I add Kelli Russell Agodon. If I could have lunch with anyone from any time Kelli would beat out both the others, as well as Rebecca Solnit who is someone I go to for clear factual essays and who doesn't make me want to write, she makes me want to be informed. I digress.
Here are some tastes. I don't know any other way to share...I can only hope her other books are as good, even if I don't believe that is possible.
***
...I've never looked up Are guardian angels real?
I've never looked up How to roast marshmallows
while the world is on fire. Some nights the moon
is a lightship floating in a shallow sea,
so bright I dim the porch light.
Much of my life, I've argued with moths
until I realized moths are guardian angels
who'll be swallowed by sparrows. Everything needs to eat,
***
Today's sea seems tired of stealing
acres of sand from the beach.
What I all erosion, the waves call:
I wish the wind would stop rushing us,
I wish we could just take it slow.
In the beauty of whitecaps, I sometimes
see sadness, sometimes how lucky we are
to watch the sunrise one more time....
***
...Who cares our plastic drifts as a tagalong
to the sunset, an autobiography of artificial
a dead whale washed up in the Philippines,
eighty-eight pounds of plastic in its gut?
Damn the turtles! Customers at McDonald's
want their straws...
***
...We cannot predict our tragedies.
We cannot plan a part for the apocalypse
because friends of the apocalypse know
the apocalypse always shows up
uninvited with a half-eaten bag of chips.
And in addition to this chapbook being something I am and will read again and again, it makes me want to write. To Mary Reufle and Amy Hempel, I add Kelli Russell Agodon. If I could have lunch with anyone from any time Kelli would beat out both the others, as well as Rebecca Solnit who is someone I go to for clear factual essays and who doesn't make me want to write, she makes me want to be informed. I digress.
Here are some tastes. I don't know any other way to share...I can only hope her other books are as good, even if I don't believe that is possible.
***
...I've never looked up Are guardian angels real?
I've never looked up How to roast marshmallows
while the world is on fire. Some nights the moon
is a lightship floating in a shallow sea,
so bright I dim the porch light.
Much of my life, I've argued with moths
until I realized moths are guardian angels
who'll be swallowed by sparrows. Everything needs to eat,
***
Today's sea seems tired of stealing
acres of sand from the beach.
What I all erosion, the waves call:
I wish the wind would stop rushing us,
I wish we could just take it slow.
In the beauty of whitecaps, I sometimes
see sadness, sometimes how lucky we are
to watch the sunrise one more time....
***
...Who cares our plastic drifts as a tagalong
to the sunset, an autobiography of artificial
a dead whale washed up in the Philippines,
eighty-eight pounds of plastic in its gut?
Damn the turtles! Customers at McDonald's
want their straws...
***
...We cannot predict our tragedies.
We cannot plan a part for the apocalypse
because friends of the apocalypse know
the apocalypse always shows up
uninvited with a half-eaten bag of chips.
January 2, 2022
Kelly Agodon’s poetry is among the most accessible and relatable poems I’ve read. In her latest collection she delves into the deep end of personal relationships and juxtaposes her experiences with issues of utmost importance, from the political to climate crisis. In “Unsustainable” she writes, “Who cares our plastic drifts as a tagalong to the sunset, / an autobiography of artificial,” Keenly aware of how temporal life is and of the impact men, especially those in politics, have on the female body, Agodon employees her poems to critique both and argue for an ethic of respect for women of all ages. I marked many lines and find this collection inspiring as I work to improve my own writing.
October 21, 2021
Dialogues With Rising Tides by Kelli Russell Agodon asks us to look closer at our own actions and reactions to buck social norms, like keeping our emotions tight to our chests, and reach out more often to those around us. We are all connected, we are all affected by the “rising tides,” and we all could use a little more understanding and love, including love of ourselves. This is a must-have collection.
Read the full review: https://savvyverseandwit.com/2021/10/...
Read the full review: https://savvyverseandwit.com/2021/10/...
June 14, 2021
Fantastic. I hadn’t read a poetry book cover to cover in one day in a long time, and this one captivated me.
April 12, 2022
i haven't loved a poetry collection so hard in a while (at least a couple of months).
#JustReadIt
#JustReadIt
May 14, 2022
this book made me like poetry and relate to it for the first time in my life, and made me enjoy annotating a book
June 13, 2021
My favorite poem in this collection has the title that happens to be my favorite word, "Grace." I like how the author weaves images from the natural world throughout her poems and how deeply personal they are.
August 22, 2022
Amazing collection of poetry that resonates with my heart and soul. Poems to be savoured and read over more than once. The inspiration that a person who journeys through this lyrical life with kindred spirits receives from writing such as this gives me great faith in creativity and the universe of the imagination. Bravo Kelli Russell Agodon for these glimpses into the heart of humanity in it’s many disguises.
August 22, 2023
This poetry collection pulled me in right away! Day 21, Book 21 for #TheSealeyChallenge
There are 7 sections, all titled, and the book has Notes at the end (I am appreciating notes more and more in poetry books). The poem titles are wonderful, and the poems, which play with form within free verse, span a lot of topics, from suicides in the family history to our current destruction of the planet. In other words, there's a great mix of personal and public/political topics, as well as a nice diversity of form/rhythm. They are held together by tone and perspective.
Some of my favorites from a book in which every poem is strong: "Hunger," "String Theory Relationships," all of the Waltz poems ("Waltz with Gatsby," "Wintercwarig Waltz," "Hesitation Waltz," and "Love Waltz with Fireworks"), "At Times My Body Leans toward Loss," "How Damage Can Lead to Poetry," "Getting an IUD on the Day of 45's Inauguration," "Queen Me," "Americanitis," "How to Live in a State of Fire," and the book's last poem, "Thank You for Saving Me, Someday I'll Save You Too."
I should also say that the poem, "Hunter's Moon," is such a favorite, I posted it on my blog years ago. I post poems I love every Wednesday and Sunday, and prompts on Sundays.
There are a lot of nods to other poets in these pages, including Denise Levertov, Theodore Roethke, Sylvia Plath, Diane Suess, and Mary Ruefle, as well as a few prose writers, like Ernest Hemingway, William James, and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Lots of favorite bits here:
"Sometimes
we make mistakes and call them coincidences."
--Hunger
"We cannot predict our tragedies."
--I Don't Own Anxiety, But I Borrow It Regularly
"The horizon is a body leaning backward
and as she laughs the moon becomes an olive"
--At a Cocktail Party, I Am Given a Drink Called Life Is Fleeting and the Olive Is Short-Lived
" . . . if night is a bruise, so am I."
--Wound Is a Form of Wind
"I wouldn't mind slipping a few satellites
into my pocket instead of a life
with limited lunar events"
--Perhaps If We Understood Desire
"pain and load are D-list celebrities we try to avoid"
--Near-Death Experience
#thesealeychallenge2023 has led me to read books I had already purchased/owned and take the time out to read them (which, I believe, is the point of the challenge). Poetry takes time, and we really need both time and poetry these days. This is a book I am glad I chose to read, and I recommend it!
There are 7 sections, all titled, and the book has Notes at the end (I am appreciating notes more and more in poetry books). The poem titles are wonderful, and the poems, which play with form within free verse, span a lot of topics, from suicides in the family history to our current destruction of the planet. In other words, there's a great mix of personal and public/political topics, as well as a nice diversity of form/rhythm. They are held together by tone and perspective.
Some of my favorites from a book in which every poem is strong: "Hunger," "String Theory Relationships," all of the Waltz poems ("Waltz with Gatsby," "Wintercwarig Waltz," "Hesitation Waltz," and "Love Waltz with Fireworks"), "At Times My Body Leans toward Loss," "How Damage Can Lead to Poetry," "Getting an IUD on the Day of 45's Inauguration," "Queen Me," "Americanitis," "How to Live in a State of Fire," and the book's last poem, "Thank You for Saving Me, Someday I'll Save You Too."
I should also say that the poem, "Hunter's Moon," is such a favorite, I posted it on my blog years ago. I post poems I love every Wednesday and Sunday, and prompts on Sundays.
There are a lot of nods to other poets in these pages, including Denise Levertov, Theodore Roethke, Sylvia Plath, Diane Suess, and Mary Ruefle, as well as a few prose writers, like Ernest Hemingway, William James, and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Lots of favorite bits here:
"Sometimes
we make mistakes and call them coincidences."
--Hunger
"We cannot predict our tragedies."
--I Don't Own Anxiety, But I Borrow It Regularly
"The horizon is a body leaning backward
and as she laughs the moon becomes an olive"
--At a Cocktail Party, I Am Given a Drink Called Life Is Fleeting and the Olive Is Short-Lived
" . . . if night is a bruise, so am I."
--Wound Is a Form of Wind
"I wouldn't mind slipping a few satellites
into my pocket instead of a life
with limited lunar events"
--Perhaps If We Understood Desire
"pain and load are D-list celebrities we try to avoid"
--Near-Death Experience
#thesealeychallenge2023 has led me to read books I had already purchased/owned and take the time out to read them (which, I believe, is the point of the challenge). Poetry takes time, and we really need both time and poetry these days. This is a book I am glad I chose to read, and I recommend it!
February 8, 2022
confession: I'm a poet - That said, there are very few poetry books that I can read right through enjoyably. This is certainly one of them and mainly I love these poems because the poet takes
us on a ride each time, has me thinking laterally as well as straight down the page. I haven't fully analyzed how that happens (unique phrasing, and uncommon word choice, I think). So the poems here are doing things for me that are surprising as well as formally pleasing. Many of the poems spread out beneath the eye in interesting shapes, so there's that as well. But, the main business of poetry, at least what I consider good poetry is the poet's ability to make you feel and re-experience the sensations and emotions being simulated. Our poet here does this very well. Some of these poems really grabbed me and demand rereading and re-rereading to experience them over again. I want to single out "Waltz with Gatsby at 3 a.m." about her old dog - oh, man. "How damage can lead to poetry" really wrung me out, rang my bell. And "Wound is a kind of wind" - man, what a poem.
So do yourself a favor, you know. Life is short, read good poetry.
us on a ride each time, has me thinking laterally as well as straight down the page. I haven't fully analyzed how that happens (unique phrasing, and uncommon word choice, I think). So the poems here are doing things for me that are surprising as well as formally pleasing. Many of the poems spread out beneath the eye in interesting shapes, so there's that as well. But, the main business of poetry, at least what I consider good poetry is the poet's ability to make you feel and re-experience the sensations and emotions being simulated. Our poet here does this very well. Some of these poems really grabbed me and demand rereading and re-rereading to experience them over again. I want to single out "Waltz with Gatsby at 3 a.m." about her old dog - oh, man. "How damage can lead to poetry" really wrung me out, rang my bell. And "Wound is a kind of wind" - man, what a poem.
So do yourself a favor, you know. Life is short, read good poetry.
June 26, 2021
Flirtations with and investigations of beauty and disaster, meaning and confusion. Diction that is sexual, feminine, cosmic, sea-saturated. Curiosity about suicide, tragedy, delight, and love--love for spouses, sex partners, family, dogs, otters, oceans, galaxies, lore, magic, answers, and music.
I read Dialogues with Rising Tides in a single sitting. First I read the last poem, then flipped to the beginning and read straight through. A good portion I'd read before in various literary journals, but those that were unfamiliar struck familiar bc of KRA's penchants structurally, lexicographically, tonally, and topically. She beads her thoughts on her poem strings with ands, sometimeses, whens, and ifs. The results strike conversational, often ambly, but with a sense of sense running through, as if to say, Yes, these disparate elements connect--of course they do--in me. They sleep side by side in my mind.
The poems expose how close fragility comes to bravery.
I read Dialogues with Rising Tides in a single sitting. First I read the last poem, then flipped to the beginning and read straight through. A good portion I'd read before in various literary journals, but those that were unfamiliar struck familiar bc of KRA's penchants structurally, lexicographically, tonally, and topically. She beads her thoughts on her poem strings with ands, sometimeses, whens, and ifs. The results strike conversational, often ambly, but with a sense of sense running through, as if to say, Yes, these disparate elements connect--of course they do--in me. They sleep side by side in my mind.
The poems expose how close fragility comes to bravery.
June 13, 2022
Dialogues with Rising Tides speaks into a time of personal, national, and global crisis, providing words to a whirlwind of emotions. Agodon brings the reader through a multitude of memories, reflections, and resolutions, guiding them through the storm like the lightships she has used to name each section. With poems like "Queen Me" and "Hold Still" she invites the reader into moments of deep reflection and with poems like "Grace" she grants the reader rest in the small beauties of creation.
May 15, 2021
This is the kind of collection that simultaneously awes me and stresses me out. In this world we live in now, poetry is sometimes really hard. But that also makes it really good. Which this is.
There's a lot to this one, it will take you places emotionally for sure. I will come back to many of these poems.
There's a lot to this one, it will take you places emotionally for sure. I will come back to many of these poems.
August 5, 2025
So much here and she presents it cleverly and almost effortlessly at times; this is how poetry should be - directed, interesting, colorful, occasionally loud. "Queen Me" and "To Have and Have Not" strong examples of range and message.
Reread in summer of 2025. Very powerful collection and enjoyed different emotions explored.
Reread in summer of 2025. Very powerful collection and enjoyed different emotions explored.
May 20, 2021
"If we never have enough love, we have more than most."
To read a book that thrums with a kind of love for everything, even the darkest dark days, is a respite from cynicism and grief. This book is for the reader who wants to feel a spontaneous ray of hope.
Put this on your "yes" list.
To read a book that thrums with a kind of love for everything, even the darkest dark days, is a respite from cynicism and grief. This book is for the reader who wants to feel a spontaneous ray of hope.
Put this on your "yes" list.
October 22, 2021
If I go back to reread every poetry book I own, I would never read new works. That said, I know I will continue returning to Kelli Russell Agodon's Dialogues with Rising Tides. Her poems hold too much depth and beauty for a single read.
October 8, 2025
This book took me much longer to get through than other poetry collections I’ve read. Why? Because they were stunning and invited me to pause and sit with each one. This is definitely a favorite read this year.
May 14, 2021
My review of DIALOGUES WITH RISING TIDES for THE SHORE can be accessed here: https://www.theshorepoetry.org/shore-....
July 5, 2021
Meditative and thoughtful, with dashes of humor.
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