Full Description
A luminous poetry collection that weaves together nature, family ties, and memory
Born from a state of fragmented time, the poems in The Unreliable Tree call out the intimate feelings mothers so often fear to share. With a precise and tender eye, Margot Kahn tracks her early years of parenthood alongside the seasons of her family's orchard. As she chronicles the changes in her marriage, her friendships, and her own shifting identity, Kahn questions the risks we take for devotion and the labors we devote to love. These poems shine a light on the patience and perseverance required to care-for homes, for people, for heritage-and ultimately question the choices we make: to hold on to others around us, and to hold on to ourselves. Compassionate, unflinching, lyric, and raw, The Unreliable Tree portrays the world of early motherhood with humility and complicated beauty.
Contents
I.
Marrying
On a Spring Sunday, I Forget My Wedding Ring
Nordstrom Lingerie
Field of Vision
The World in My Phone amp Out the Window
Accidental Hosts
Precaution
My Mother Could Always Wear Anything
Cold Creek
An Opening
Western Tanager
II.
Plum Season
Exile
A Quiet Day with the West on Fire
Fermata
Light in the Hand
Dinner
Electroencephalogram
The Cleaner
The Towels
Ode to Trichotillomania
Free Boat at the Corner of Kjargaard amp Fisherman Bay
III.
Practice at the Community Courts
August
Mixed Feelings about My Contribution to Humanity
After a Mass Shooting
On the Bus Through Oregon
In Which I Excuse Freddy Mercury from P.E.
Rancho Bar
After a Winter Storm
If Someone Says Catalina
Walking to the End of the Road on the Last Day of July
IV.
Taking Advantage of a Summer' s Day
Morning Reverie
Wanting
In the Armor Court
Beforetimes
During the Pandemic, I Give You a Haircut
On Dissolution
Into the OR
Post-Op
Winter
Skiing
Acknowledgments
