I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth by Cathy Hailey

Cathy Hailey’s venturesome book combines the crystalline image of haiku with the sonnet’s classic lyricism. Her poem ‘In Closing’ says, “There’s magic in condensing, / precision in expressing.” Magic is the right word when tradition and innovation spark new life into poetry. Clarity and prosody, East and West, formalism and liberation, all come together in I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth. There’s nothing more beautiful than harmony on the page.

–Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate

When you settle in to experience the dance of Cathy Hailey’s words, images, and symbols in her collection, I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth, you will not only feel like you’re an audience member of a deeply moving ballet – the poet’s form bringing words to life – but you will also be transfixed by the way her lyric poems show us life in all its complexity, beauty, and heartache. The ballet within the ballet reveals the richness between art and life: glimpses into Hailey’s own family relationships, rich in ancestry and love but also in grief, as well as meditations on nature and our connection to Earth’s creatures, and even the tragedy of so much loss of life due to the pandemic. Through the movement of Hailey’s poems, we feel how all of us – all of creation – are connected, how art helps us transcend sadness, and how beauty – like the sun – rises each morning, as we carry on in life’s great dance.

–Kathy Cable Smaltz, Poet Laureate, Emerita, Prince William County, VA