Full Description
The Safety of Small Things meditates on mortality from a revealing perspective. Images of stark examination rooms, the ravages of chemotherapy, biopsies, and gel-soaked towels entwine with remembrance to reveal grace and even beauty where they are least expected. Jane Hicks captures contemporary Appalachia in all of its complexities: the world she presents constantly demonstrates how the past and the present (and even the future) mingle unexpectedly. The poems in this powerful collection juxtapose the splendor and revelation of nature and science, the circle of life, how family and memory give honor to those we've lost, and how they can all fit together. This lyrical and contemplative yet provocative collection sings a song of lucidity, redemption, and celebration.
Contents
Into Night
I
The Unseen
Spotlight
Safe Route
Abscission
PTSD
Birthday, 1956
Shine
The Dark
Age of Providence
Caesura
Mam Recounts Family History
This Morning, In the Mist
The Time I Stole
Dancing in the Stars
Pocket Money
Night Music
Ode on an Onion
Persimmons
II
Notes from the Forgotten Year
Closed Hold
Shadows
Lair
What I Learned
Mississippi, 1964
Haiku
Take This Leaf
Longing
Jack Higgs Walks Alone at Hindman
Kept Things
Persist
Pyburn Creek
Safety of Small Things
Follow
After Chemo #2
Neophyte
Tobacco
An East Tennessee Parking Lot
III
Remnants of a Saving Life
Communion
Drawn
Cumberland Gap Above the Furnace
The Farmer's Son Begs Relief
Changeling
Eclipse
Solstice
Bird Boy
Walking the Wilderness Road at Cumberland Gap
Buick Reverie
Menagerie
First Morning
Publications
Acknowledgements
