A poet, fiction writer, and musician who's lived in Bellingham, WA, almost forty years, Richard Widerkehr often sings a batch of songs across the ages at the Green Frog open mic on Mondays.
"Richard Widerkehr's In the Presence of Absence is a book of loss
and recovery, grief
and wonder. These are poems informed with clarity and compassion,
and a quiet
lyricism in confronting the mortal world, the death of parents, and
life-threatening
illness. There is a freshness and ease of manner to Widerkehr's
writing and at times
a kind of other worldly aura, 'that strange gift from the other
side.' There is as well a
deep gratitude that infuses these poems, that grounds them in the
here and now. He
is a poet who has 'been dealt happiness, /grief, and two wild
cards.' And we are the
lucky readers who have been dealt these marvelous poems."
--Joseph Stroud. author of Of This World: New and Selected Poems"In
The Presence Of Absence overflows with musicality, surprising
imagery, and
gratitude earned by paying attention to the small moments that make
up a reverent
life: 'the black trees reflected in a roadside puddle, ' a mother's
slow passing, and
the tenderness with which the poet stands witness to her death, 'I
must be true/
to your story./I can't tell it/one spoonful at a time.' This book
details a heart that
is wide open to both the pain and beauty of life. Widerkehr sings
Kaddish for his
father, admires bikini-clad women on a resort beach in Mexico, and
observes his
own cancer surgery, all the while knowing we are just passing
through. We can
learn much from these remarkable poems. As Widerkehr brilliantly
says, 'It's time
to make my statement/ about how certain stars float in the
night.'"
--Gayle Kaune, author of All the Birds Awake
Ask a Question About this Product More... |