Bones of a Very Fine Hand

By Marjorie Saiser

Intense poetry about family life, told in a mature voice by a veteran poet of the Great Plains, Marjorie Saiser. Poet Judith Minty writes: "I am deeply moved by these extraordinary poems about giving birth and dying, about what it means to live life with dignity. They grow out of the heart of America, out of the landscape of small town and prairie, out of the hearts of people who look you straight in the eye. You dare not turn away, for the lessons to learn here are compelling. Marjorie Saiser is not only a wise and compassionate writer--her poems shine with details of the things of this earth, they pulse with the earth's very rhythms."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0739202847
• ISBN13: 9780739202845
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: The Backwaters Press
• Length: 105 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Midwest Book Review - a Nebraska wordsmith

Marjorie Saiser is a Nebraska wordsmith. Whispers of the Niobrara, Keya Paha, Platte, and prairies run rich through her poems. I felt a poignant fullnes in my heart while reading this book, because the author sees life as it was and is. Nothing blocks her view of beauty, joy, despair, the supernatural or commonplance when Ms. Saiser puts her words to paper. In "Once", she tells of her father taking her mother's picture. It's a picture the young husband will carry with him to war:...crossing the equator, a plains boy in New Guineacarrying among the baby pictures mymother young and true and lovely,long legs bared to the sun. Learning of her daughter's pregnancy in "We Get the News" far outstrips the news of car bombings and business as usual:Flower in my daughter's narrow body,I want to think there is that which prevails. A deformed chick is the object lesson in "I Let My Daughter Down":...Something happened, I say, in the egg. My daughter's eyesare lovely. Fairness. A chancefor everybody. She names himPegasus. Marjorie Saiser sees love everywhere - in old photographs and letters, in fields, mountains and oceans, by the perfume counter at Dillard's, in once strong hands that falter - and shares that love with us. Ms. Saiser writes - creates - with a very fine hand.