Name: How to Fly
ISBN: 9780571359905

BARBARA. KINGSOLVER

(in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

How to Fly

Barbara Kingsolver

In this intimate collection, the beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and more than a dozen other New York Times bestsellers, winner or finalist for the Pulitzer and countless other prizes, now trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are smartly crafted, emotionally rich, and luminous. In her second poetry collection, Barbara Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with "how to" poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship and family, and making peace (or not) with death, in the many ways it finds us. Some poems reflect on the redemptive powers of art and poetry itself; others consider where everything begins. Closing the book are poems that celebrate natural wonders--birdsong and ghost-flowers, ruthless ants, clever shellfish, coral reefs, deadly deserts, and thousand-year-old beech trees--all speaking to the daring project of belonging to an untamed world beyond ourselves. Altogether, these are poems about transcendence: finding breath and lightness in life and the everyday acts of living. It's all terribly easy and, as the title suggests, not entirely possible. Or at least, it is never quite finished.

Poetry

How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

Joycelyn Ghansah

I couldn't get into this. I finished, but it felt like pulling tooth and nail. I dont think it's the author. Maybe it's just not my type of poetry or book. I felt like the book was trying to be something that it's not and didn't go so well. Again, maybe Im not the audience for this, or perhaps it's not that great. I dont know. Im happy others enjoyed it, though.