The Bird Catcher Book

Marie Ponsot is a subtle, delicate, and yet oddly assertive poet. Again and again in The Bird Catcher, she approaches experience with a kind of reasonable trepidation. Yet she always does what is necessary--as protagonist and poet--to elicit a spiritual insight. Braving the elements seems to be second nature to her. And in this volume, she's consumed by one element in particular: water. In "Separate in the Swim," for example, she can't resist the ocean's allure, despite her terror of "the aim of wave, the idea / that picks up the water / and throws it at the shore." Yet this terror is also a prelude to a vision of oneness: Each stroke starts a far drumming clumping the kelp, helping shells and rubbish decay into sand. In this stretch of the Atlantic the whole Atlantic operates. As I ride, its broad cast evokes my tiny unity, a pod, a person. Thanks to the closure of skin I'm forking the tune I'm part of though my part is played moving on a different instrument. In every poem in the collection, Marie Ponsot functions as an explorer, relentlessly mapping one piece of terra incognita after another. A linguistic delight, The Bird Catcher is also an invitation to voyage into the inner and outer wilderness. --Mark RudmanRead More