By Tom Hennen, Jim Harrison
After this all-but-unknown poet was once referred to as an “American grasp” in a protracted, lovely evaluation in The ny Times, Tom Hennen used to be ultimately "discovered," and his publication grew to become a poetry best-seller
“It’s challenging to think that this American master—and I don’t use these phrases lightly—has been hidden correct less than our noses for many years. yet regardless of his loss of popularity, Mr. Hennen...has easily long past approximately his calling with humility and gratitude in a tradition whose fundamental crop has develop into repute. He simply watches, waits after which moves, supplying heart-buckling lines.” —Dana Jennings, The manhattan Times
"As with Ted Kooser, Tom Hennen is a genius of the typical contact. . . . they're amazingly modest males who early permitted poetry as a calling in historical phrases and not enable up regardless of being overlooked early on. They go back to the readers a thousandfold for his or her attentions."—Jim Harrison, from the introduction
"Many readers will take pleasure in this evocation of a existence no longer as regularly portrayed in modern verse."—Library Journal
"There is anything of the traditional chinese language poets in Hennen, of Clare and Thoreau, even if he's a great deal a latest poet."—Willow Springs
"One of the main fascinating issues approximately Tom Hennen's poems is his unusual skill to deliver big quantities of area, frequently uninhabited house, into his brain and so into the complete poem."—Robert Bly
"America is a rustic that loves its ads. That loves its packing containers we will placed humans and areas into. we adore 'Heartland' rather than 'Dustbowl.' We additionally like to be shocked. Rural Minnesota, as written via Tom Hennen in Darkness Sticks to Everything, is an international of lifelike loneliness and classes. It’s a set of honest poems approximately guy and the land."—The Rumpus
"Hennen is a grasp of the prose poem [who] can take little info, tiny info and cause them to universal."—River Falls Journal
"What separates Hennen from lots of his contemporaries is his willingness to spot with the wildlife in a fashion that feels neither possessive nor self-serving, yet easily (once back) sincere."—Basalt Magazine
"There is whatever robust in all Tom Hennen's poems, an information and a transparent, certain voice... i do not often are looking to finish via announcing 'Buy this book,' yet i'll say it this time: 'You can buy this book.'"—Fleda Brown, Interlochen Public Radio
"[A] pride to learn for the individual that is keen to decelerate with Hennen and have a look less than a leaf, or at a bee, or into their very own mirrored image in a rain drop."—The Corresponder
Tom Hennen provides voice to the prairie and to rural groups, celebrating—with unhappiness, compliment, and astute observations—the land, climate, and population. in brief lyrics and prose poems, he finds the exact strangeness of normal issues. amassed from six chapbooks that have been locally dispensed, this quantity is Hennen's long-overdue advent to a countrywide viewers. comprises an creation by way of Jim Harrison and an afterword via Thomas R. Smith.
"In Falling Snow at a Farm Auction"
Straight pine chair
Comfortable
In anyone's company,
Older than grandmother
It enters the present
Its palms extensive open
Wanting to carry one other younger wife.
Tom Hennen, writer of six books of poetry, used to be born and raised in rural Minnesota. After forsaking collage, he married and commenced paintings as a letterpress and offset printer. He helped discovered the Minnesota Writer's Publishing apartment, then labored for the dept of normal assets flora and fauna part, and later on the Sand Lake nationwide flora and fauna safe haven in South Dakota. Now retired, he lives in Minnesota.
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Additional info for Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems
Skinny as clouds The branches Swirl above the tree They waft off the floor Like The thousand frail ideas of somebody approximately to unsleeping. Tree Planting in Rain Tiny spruce line up in a row in the back of me. Their lengthy ft grip the earth. jointly we disappear Over the horizon. After a protracted journey The river goes to the Gulf of Mexico. The moon on best the water Doesn’t circulation. It’s no longer drawn to a journey to New Orleans. Its gentle is already drained from touring 250,000 miles to polish on a few bushes. Umbra I’ve come from New Mexico. 1000 years in the past i used to be an Indian poet With other halves. Now I’m white and brief and take a look at all day to believe the earth via my paintings boots. a part of My task Is to Water bushes throughout the Drought The spruce tree is loss of life. I flip the hose on it besides The solar is below my blouse Cooking my beliefs. dust in my nostril and ears. If the water truck hits me I won’t have time to repent. My existence and soul Are tied up Miles clear of somebody Who could ponder placing their palms round me. autonomous life A small pond comes out of the hillside. On its floor Hangs a frog imitating moss. A willow leaf Drops at the water And is straight away nonetheless. Autumn air penetrates the floor. Wind hums perpetually To the tangled grass. while issues ensue right here there isn't any urge to place them on television. The Rain places Out the Burning Autumn Grass Quietly as smoke The naked plum timber disguise the hill. in case you chew a wooden Tick in together with your enamel it may possibly provide you with Rocky Mountain noticed Fever On cloudy autumn days I omit the burden on my dermis of light And wooden ticks pondering that what I pay attention at evening Is the noise of ducks can be canines barking humans hollering Or the dust street eventually creating a sound. often an previous lady Is the chief Autumn has a mom. at the present time She’s chilly and rainy. a lady can draw warmth From a bit of furnishings Or a cloud. a guy Can’t get hot. He attempts to shoot down The previous rooster duck As she leads her flock clear of snow. His shotgun pulls him into the sky. Autumn ready chilly wind. The day is watching for iciness and not using a sound. every little thing is ready— Broken-down vehicles within the lifeless weeds. The weeds themselves. bushes. Even solar Is in no hurry and remains for a very long time On every one cornstalk. Blackbirds take a seat in bunches. From a distance they're quiet as piles of darkish grain Spilled at the street. i believe of Bread and Water and the Roots of a Tree All rainy an outline of the highway misplaced trying to find a urban. I get back To ducks. Rain falls at the parking meters Glass and metal are shining yet humans Are darkish all through. within the Shallows of the River After one o’clock within the afternoon Ice nonetheless An 8th of an inch thick. evening by no means disappears. A glimpse of fur less than the darkish brush at the financial institution. The aspens unmoving. The goldenrod too Is stripped all the way down to its naked stalk. within the chilly Even my techniques Have misplaced their foliage and seem by myself Dry and slender within the flat air. At evening I Dissolve arms of mist fingers and center Of fog My voice Crosses the brink A small cloud Ascending towards the moon.