Black Hollyhock, First Light

By Judyth Hill

Book Overview

"Judyth Hill is a stand-up bard--a funny performance poet and a passionate advocate of The Tradition and The Muse. Deep Ecology elder Dolores LaChapelle has described Hill as a poet who 'puts place and sex and love together in a way that is totally environmentally aware and totally human.' She has been called 'energy with skin' and a ?rabbi of the miraculous.' Her work is exuberant in its sustained electricity between self and world, its rhapsody with the other-than-human, and the singing of its alert and crafted language. This new collection contains poems that reflect the abundance of life--full of itch, of heat, the flavor of apricots, yearning fox howls, a shrine filled with acorns, good coffee, the scent of the imaginary wafting off the sensuous curves of real bread, and thick cumulus clouds drifting over the front range at the end of the valley. When, like an impenetrable crowd at a coronation, the Divine surrounds the smallest, ordinary evidence of its own magnificence, Judyth Hill lifts us with a laugh up onto the tearful diligent shoulders of her poems to catch a glimpse.'--Martin Prechtel

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 188880923X
• ISBN13: 9781888809237
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: La Alameda Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding poetry from a fabulous lady

Judyth Hill is a dynamic performer, writes smashing food reviews for the Santa Fe New Mexican, and, oh yes, composes (in my humble opinion) the best poetry in the Southern Rockies, and quite possibly North America. This collection ranges from idyllic celebrations of life, love, and the changing seasons, to thoughtful dissections of maturing relationships, to coping with the dangerous and the tragic: a bear at the bird feeder, her father's death, evacuating her beloved home threatened by a forest fire. The book looks terrific, too: the cover picture, typography, and layout are gorgeous. I enjoyed it thoroughly ... but I have one complaint. Ms. Hill needs a proofreader: I found several instances of "it's" that should have been "its," and misspellings (or typos), and I felt that these detracted from what was otherwise a thoroughly class act.

Gorgeous and ripe, moving and unforgettable

Pair a colorful dark flower cover painting reminiscent of Judy Chicago with striking free verse poems and you have Black Hollyhock, First Light, a unique collection filled with energy and description which stands out from the crowd When you are receptacle, you become mule's ears/in the rooted community. As in/aspens, a shudder and hiss,/the gray blue ceiling of flicer above/and beneath, cow parsnips umbrellizing over their leaves. Gorgeous and ripe, moving and unforgettable - highly recommended.