Hailstorm Interlude by Thomas Erickson
$14.99
I’m drawn to the quiet moments of Thomas J. Erickson’s poems – the depressions of graves at the abandoned lumberjack cemetery, the bluebells that don’t come up, the other Tom who (the poet assumes) asks his wife if she’s ready to take the dog for a walk. In “At the Monkey Skull Museum” after considering the fragile skulls, the bonobo that is “the most human,” and Hitchcock’s thoughts on women, Erickson writes: “There’s this ‘universal phenomenon’ of men inter- / rupting women which I suppose started four million / years ago when humans split from monkeys. I’m not / going to interrupt her because I am, all of a sudden, sympathetic.” I love this interrupted line, this voice full of bravado & fear. It’s the same voice that finds in pain a “mouth gaping in a rictus of joy.”
–Kubasta, author of Of Covenants and Girling
It occurs to me that a law degree can sometimes serve as an outstanding credential for poets who have the courage to tackle the toughest of subjects—as attorney Tom Erickson skillfully does in his newest collection, Hailstorm Interlude. In its pages he confronts matters as daunting and difficult as then-vs-now, for instance. Despair vs hope. White vs black (one of the most memorable poems on the subject that I’ve ever read). November vs not-November. Even an encounter between what might be called transcendental basketball vs hoops-of-the-ordinary-kind, in which the poet extends a sporty metaphor toward a profound and inevitable conclusion. It’s a riveting read—occasionally steely in tone, always generous in spirit—and one that I highly recommend.
–Marilyn L Taylor, Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Emerita
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