Barbara Hoffert Recommends Red Rover

Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 12/15/2008 10:31:00 AM

Recommendation: Red Rover by Susan Stewart because at a time when we are overwhelmed by bad news and more information than we can possibly handle, we need truly pointed and elegant poetry to clear our senses. No, this is not a bunch of nursery rhymes, though some of the poems remake children’s games to show the disquiet that underlines casual play: “red rover, red rover/ let them come over// spirit moving / formless through the startled leaves.” Stewart cocks her head and looks at the world a little differently, capturing an owl’s flight, a boy’s voice, a terrible massacre in beautiful but unfussy language that wants to communicate. Startling, yes.

Ideal recipient: Anyone who loves poetry. Or anyone who is afraid of contemporary poetry because it seems either too self-referentially prosy (“I trudged through the snow/ hating myself”) or too opaque (whiteishness/ the blind grows/ blurt”).

Nonbook Tie-in: A good bottle of wine to sip as you read. There is, in fact, a Red Rover wine.