Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Prodigal

Prodigal

Tolf, Francine Marie

Paperback

General Poetry

ISBN10: 1936671085
ISBN13: 9781936671083
Publisher: Pinyon Publishing
Published: Apr 2 2012
Pages: 88
Weight: 0.31
Height: 0.21 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
We have lost our ability to name, Francine Marie Tolf writes: We say antelope, owl, / as if these words had power. / As if the names of animals hadn't long fled / back into animals. Thus, Tolf lays out the major themes of her second collection of poems, Prodigal: nature, animals, and language-plus a fourth: discoveries that occur when one of these intricate living strands intersects with another. Tolf doesn't shy from the savagery humans inflict on earth and other animals, but instead encourages us to reflect and understand if we can. In This Rain and A Good Thing are brief but chilling examples. Yet this collection of finely tuned poems balances sorrow and outrage with deep joy and delight. Multilayered and intimate, Prodigal offers hope, derived not from cheaply won sentiment, but from an intensely personal conviction welling from an imperfect and compassionate heart: At its center, / the circle inverts: / the food chain collapses, / the lion eats straw. / Yet tears are not reversed, / but are wiped away. / So necessary to me, that God / who lets tears fall. / Who touches a quail's grief / with his own hand.

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