griefbeing

Reading Nicole Callihan's griefbeing is like cradling a nest woven not only of twigs and reeds, but of hair, fishing line, love note scraps, kite spool. Myriad elements have built our grief:: "the little dump truck undumped; a girl's "graphite mistakes to be rubbed/so hard as to make a hole in the paper/in her chest;" a thin envelope and dried out inkwell, a pink pearl or pitched tent. This is Callihan's magic. Without one mawkish syllable, she transports us to the emotional core of grief and leaves us knowing as we never have before --Brenda Cárdenas, Wisconsin Poet Laureate