Completing the ARC - Paperback

by Nancy Hewitt (Author)

W.H. Auden says poetry is "a clear expression of mixed feelings," and that's one of the gifts in this compelling book of poems. Nancy Hewitt traces the movement from the constrictions of a 1950's childhood, content to draw within the lines, to an adult freedom in which she can say, "I use language to open the skies." The speaker does not shy away from trouble, but traces the complex entanglements of family narrative with insight and compassion. Art and travel become ways the world opens up for this speaker, as when she visits the Guggenheim and learns "the fine art of looking out and up." Indeed, she looks and sees with remarkable clarity. There's a fine tension here between the need for measure and the longing for abundance, and amazingly these poems give us both through their shapely forms and vivid moments of transport. Hewitt is a poet of rich vision and intelligence, and this is a beautiful book.