$14.99
Nettles and Thistles, Hilda Weaver’s strikingly resonant first book of poems, offers no easy comfort for “all the Liliths” to whom the book is dedicated, those “who never found a place to rest.” No comfort, but finely wrought truth and beauty of the kind that pierces us awake to the knowledge that we are all Lilith “in our fury to be born” to this broken world that is, nonetheless, our own.
–Pauletta Hansel, Poet Laureate of Cincinnati 2016-2018
Nettles and Thistles binds together the vulnerability and ferocity of the female spirit. The figures within recall lives as “frail as…Spanish moss” and as purposeful “as beetles pushing dung/or ants which carry burdens/bigger than themselves.” These poems unfurl with luminous narrative energy, weaving a complex story of adaptation and resistance to designs, marking a journey of unfailing love pricked by memory’s surprising sting.
–Sherry Cook Stanforth, Ph,D, Professor of English, Creative Writing Vision Director, Thomas More College
These are powerful lyrics that embrace the violence, the ephemeral, the need to love despite all reasons to give up. Women drag “their homespun/ skirts through dust,” chiggers bite a “tiara on” heads, people are as frail as “Spanish moss,” but despite all the sufferings of life there are also days “when even cockatoos/ make love.” The speaker in these poems has known caves “grown explosive with the piss/ and shit of mules and cows” and knows her “life will dwindle in excruciating bits” but is still able to “marvel/ at astounding red, woodpecker cap.” The wisdom and harsh beauty in these poems, the rich language and surprising imagery make me turn again and again to these poems. I know that I am in the world of a master and I am only left wanting more.
–Kelly Moffett, Graduate Director, Coordinator of Creative Writing, Associate Professor of English, Northern Kentucky University
“Honoring women of all cultures, known and unknown, who have carried humanity with body and soul, these poems delight and surprise with shocks of recognition and shards of light.”
–Robert K. Wallace, Regents Professor of English, Northern Kentucky University
Nettles and Thistles
by Hilda Weaver
$14.99, paper
978-1-63534-539-1
2018
Born in Washington, D. C., Hilda lives now in Northern Kentucky with her daughter Gina and Gina’s family. She writes, is a Hospice volunteer and an active church member. Mother of three, she is also the grandmother of four and the great grandmother of seven.
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