Monday, July 30, 2007

Naming the Disappeared by Ann Silsbee

Naming the Disappeared is a carefully written chapbook of compact poems, many of which are inspired by photographs by Dorothea Lange. Writer Ann Silsbee was a composer and poet whose works were widely performed and published. She was married to the physicist Robert Silsbee, whose photographs illustrate the chapbook, and had three sons.

from Naming the Disappeared

The Storyteller

listens inside his corral of bones
head back eye-gates closed mouth rut-circled
shows not a hint of hoofbeat or neigh
though you know he feels story nudge him
kick in his belly nose at his lungs
When his eyes flare white he'll not stand tame
in his baggy raincoat He'll seize us
jump ahorse with us gallop us off
flinging his wide brimmed hat to the wind

$8.95
ISBN 0-9702498-1-0