Swimming Lessons

the long version

In this generous gathering of new poems and work selected from her ten earlier books, the artistry, grace, and sense of wonder that have distinguished Nancy Willard's poetry for the past three decades are displayed in vivid abundance. Psalms to the puffball, to the wisdom of geese, to bees swarming, and to angels in the snow transport us to the farm country of Michigan and New York. Other poems - for example, "When There Were Trees" - take us to landscapes at once earthy and mythical: "I saw maples fanning the fire in their stars, / heard the coins of the aspens rattling like teeth, / saw cherry trees spraying fountains of light, / smelled the wine my heel pressed from ripe apples.". In Nancy Willard's poems the stuff of everyday life is transformed: bathtubs are "melancholy tureens into which the moon ladles her light broth"; the optometrist's shop, where "from the lit shelves stare a hundred eyeglasses," brings about a charmed discomfort; a dentist's mirror is "a moon caught on a silver baton." Hers is a vision marked by playfulness and close observation, by a questioning both joyful and profound, by the lasting enchantment of a light-filled world.