Stones Will Shout

By Helen E Herr

In Stones Will Shout, Helen E. Herr shares poetic anecdotes that demonstrate life's ironies and loveliness in equal measure. "Our children have left home for their careers/I just begin mine," she writes, reminiscing about obtaining a theology degree in her 40s; and, after a beloved foster son's death, she reveals that in the heart of deepest pain "all smile for family photos".

Herr also celebrates Saskatchewan's beauty and the gifts nature delivers, ie: crocuses "dress frosty hills/in mauve," and seagulls at Greig Lake "map routes in the sand". This is a writer who not only understands that the "Black-eyed oak refuses/to face the ocean" because it is "ashamed to be a bench/on a beach," but also empathizes with that misplaced tree. The human body becomes wind, tree, moon, bird, water.

In their disparate subject matter-and with Herr's ability to press the bruises-the poems in this candid and well-honed collection remind us that where there have been shadows, the light one day returns.

How does one survive a life? By naturalizing sorrow, creativity, community, and the self as part of the order of all things animate and inanimate.

- Taylor Leedahl, Toronto, ON...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1525547437
• ISBN13: 9781525547430
• Release Date: May 2019
• Publisher: FriesenPress
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 7.0" x 10.0"