Although Marybeth Holleman's five books are all deeply rooted in Alaska's landscape and wildlife, Tender Gravity is her first expression of that connection through poetry. The title phrase comes from the first entry, "The Beating Heart, Minus Gravity," in which Holleman (The Heart of the Sound) recalls her childhood when she imagined that flying would be just like swimming: "you stroke/ through air like water." The bittersweet nature of longing resurfaces throughout, such as when the speaker in "Prodigal," a poem about birds' spring arrivals, asks: "Who would I rather be?/ One returning,/ or one staying?"
Indeed, birds, rocks and plants are the collection's guiding spirits. The bare-bones profundity of "Sphagnum," in which the moss's water-holding capacity is a metaphor for human love, makes it a highlight. Alliterative verse pairs unusual verbs with vibrant imagery: "purple sap-tipped hemlock cones/ scribing season's transmutation/ with each pearled drop." Nature inspires awe even when it frightens (a close shave in the entry called "thoughts on a black bear, charging") and can be experienced just as intensely indoors ("the faint white curve of the moon/ lights apparitions outside my window") as outdoors ("pulsating orbs of white spread below my kayak, a gathering of moon jellies/ mirroring sky's clouds").
Loss is a plangent undercurrent--both environmental (in "How to Grieve a Glacier") and personal, as the poet reflects on her brother's murder: "i feel closer to you now than when you were alive./ ...you walk with me,/ the breeze your hand." In these 45 passionate poems, the peace found in nature helps soothe pain. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck