A Wild Region: Poems & Paintings
by Kate Buckley
Foreword by Cecilia Woloch
Click here to purchase a copy of A Wild Region
(Moon Tide Press, 2008)
Praise for Kate Buckley and A Wild Region:
"A ribbon of Appalachia winds through Kate Buckley's vigorous voice in her debut collection of poems, A Wild Region. It was my pleasure to choose her as the winner of the 2008 James Hearst Poetry Prize for the North American Review, and it is an equal pleasure to welcome this book of poems, crafted from the patterns of speech of the wild region Buckley loves and the wildness of its people, too." --Molly Peacock
"Kate Buckley's poems are dark prayers and lyrical ballads, infused with mystery and awe... And the stories these poems tell—finely crafted as the poems are—are stories that speak to all of us, accessible and clear for all their complicated depth, 'universal' precisely because they're so deeply personal, and so deeply felt. There is so much stunning language in this collection, so much accuracy and grace, and there are so many images that take my breath away... Kate Buckley shows us how the beautiful and the brutal can not only coexist alongside one another, but exist within one another. Hers is a necessary and welcome new voice."
--Cecilia Woloch
"A Wild Region is a family history in verse as well as a lovely elegy for Buckley's grandmother set in a Kentucky that is both pastoral and industrial: 'I have ridden on horseback / under the harvest moon, gold and heavy' vs. 'the coughs that stained your linens black / no matter how many times you bleached them.' Interspersed are the poet's own paintings, similarly patterned: pale impressionist shimmers plus brusque expressionist impasto. The elegies are especially moving: 'her wispy hair, fine as floss / cotton against the pale earth of her skull' and 'I cradle her, cradle her, and rock her home.' Pick up this book. (Buckley won this year's Hearst Poetry Prize.) --North American Review
"Painting and poetry are two art forms that stand side by side and work well together. A Wild Region is a collection of oil paintings and poetry from prolific poet Kate Buckley, whose work has appeared in countless venues. Many of her poems are opposite full color art, adding a fresh dimension to her work. A Wild Region is a fine blend of art forms, highly recommended. 'On Hearing Your News': My eyes lie flat in my skull,/darkened, bruised//lashes whip-stitched to swollen lids;/sleep has once again been elusive.//My organs weigh more/than they did the day before,/swollen with unhappiness,/gorged with regret:/tiny fists in my stomach pummeling/ the hanging ball of my heart." --Midwest Book Review (Reviewer's Choice)
"Many of the poems recall the work of poet Andrew Hudgins, both for their subject matter and use of forms... Like Hudgins, Buckley can convey the physical and emotional violence of characters without apology, presenting people as they were and laying bare their choices without too much explanation...W.H. Auden once said 'a poem is like a story . . . with all the boring parts left out.' Buckley certainly has many stories to tell, of birth and deaths, abandonment and murder. And she is a gifted storyteller... Perhaps, this is Buckley’s intent in many of her poems--to take the chaotic and random pieces and make them fit, make them record a life, like a handmade quilt. Buckley's poems are as beautiful and well-crafted." --The Adirondack Review
"Kate Buckley's A Wild Region, exemplifies what is best about American poetry: honest, clear, fluid, and genuine. A Wild Region, is a strong debut collection that deserves a place on every poet's bookshelf. --Marie C. Lecrivain
"This is a book of poems full of clues—clues more satisfying even than answers, since they point us toward the wilder regions of the complex human heart. Like a heady night in the rural South, these poems are sonorous, delicious, and dark—at once comforting and mysterious, wicked and sweet." --Robert Peake
"True to her Kentucky roots, Kate Buckley is a born storyteller with a poet's transforming vision of the world's details informed by loss and exile." --Julie Kuzneski Wrinn for the Betty Gabehart Prize
"In A Wild Region, Kate Buckley explores the connections between landscape, memory and history...Buckley's style is perfect for this task." --Poetix.net: Poetry for Southern California
by Kate Buckley
Foreword by Cecilia Woloch
Click here to purchase a copy of A Wild Region
(Moon Tide Press, 2008)
Praise for Kate Buckley and A Wild Region:
"A ribbon of Appalachia winds through Kate Buckley's vigorous voice in her debut collection of poems, A Wild Region. It was my pleasure to choose her as the winner of the 2008 James Hearst Poetry Prize for the North American Review, and it is an equal pleasure to welcome this book of poems, crafted from the patterns of speech of the wild region Buckley loves and the wildness of its people, too." --Molly Peacock
"Kate Buckley's poems are dark prayers and lyrical ballads, infused with mystery and awe... And the stories these poems tell—finely crafted as the poems are—are stories that speak to all of us, accessible and clear for all their complicated depth, 'universal' precisely because they're so deeply personal, and so deeply felt. There is so much stunning language in this collection, so much accuracy and grace, and there are so many images that take my breath away... Kate Buckley shows us how the beautiful and the brutal can not only coexist alongside one another, but exist within one another. Hers is a necessary and welcome new voice."
--Cecilia Woloch
"A Wild Region is a family history in verse as well as a lovely elegy for Buckley's grandmother set in a Kentucky that is both pastoral and industrial: 'I have ridden on horseback / under the harvest moon, gold and heavy' vs. 'the coughs that stained your linens black / no matter how many times you bleached them.' Interspersed are the poet's own paintings, similarly patterned: pale impressionist shimmers plus brusque expressionist impasto. The elegies are especially moving: 'her wispy hair, fine as floss / cotton against the pale earth of her skull' and 'I cradle her, cradle her, and rock her home.' Pick up this book. (Buckley won this year's Hearst Poetry Prize.) --North American Review
"Painting and poetry are two art forms that stand side by side and work well together. A Wild Region is a collection of oil paintings and poetry from prolific poet Kate Buckley, whose work has appeared in countless venues. Many of her poems are opposite full color art, adding a fresh dimension to her work. A Wild Region is a fine blend of art forms, highly recommended. 'On Hearing Your News': My eyes lie flat in my skull,/darkened, bruised//lashes whip-stitched to swollen lids;/sleep has once again been elusive.//My organs weigh more/than they did the day before,/swollen with unhappiness,/gorged with regret:/tiny fists in my stomach pummeling/ the hanging ball of my heart." --Midwest Book Review (Reviewer's Choice)
"Many of the poems recall the work of poet Andrew Hudgins, both for their subject matter and use of forms... Like Hudgins, Buckley can convey the physical and emotional violence of characters without apology, presenting people as they were and laying bare their choices without too much explanation...W.H. Auden once said 'a poem is like a story . . . with all the boring parts left out.' Buckley certainly has many stories to tell, of birth and deaths, abandonment and murder. And she is a gifted storyteller... Perhaps, this is Buckley’s intent in many of her poems--to take the chaotic and random pieces and make them fit, make them record a life, like a handmade quilt. Buckley's poems are as beautiful and well-crafted." --The Adirondack Review
"Kate Buckley's A Wild Region, exemplifies what is best about American poetry: honest, clear, fluid, and genuine. A Wild Region, is a strong debut collection that deserves a place on every poet's bookshelf. --Marie C. Lecrivain
"This is a book of poems full of clues—clues more satisfying even than answers, since they point us toward the wilder regions of the complex human heart. Like a heady night in the rural South, these poems are sonorous, delicious, and dark—at once comforting and mysterious, wicked and sweet." --Robert Peake
"True to her Kentucky roots, Kate Buckley is a born storyteller with a poet's transforming vision of the world's details informed by loss and exile." --Julie Kuzneski Wrinn for the Betty Gabehart Prize
"In A Wild Region, Kate Buckley explores the connections between landscape, memory and history...Buckley's style is perfect for this task." --Poetix.net: Poetry for Southern California
Selected Poems from A Wild Region:
Rue
Sun filters through skeleton palms,
dank water licks lazily at shoreline,
tortoises sleep their green hill dreams.
Swampland sings its stuck-mud staccato,
shaded path winds around the lake
over and over to its starting place,
the way a road takes us
where we no longer want to go.
Repentance does not undo what has been done,
and grass tramped by heavy boots
soon springs back.
There is truth in vengeance,
in the flowering over and over
of evil deeds
until they have gone to seed,
withered in hoarfrost ground.
Laurel County
There must have been times
Kentucky seemed a life sentence,
a dark-veined monster burning coal in her belly,
the coughs that stained your linens black
no matter how many times you bleached them back
by the creek where you caught crawdads for supper.
You tell me of life but do not mention hunger,
you speak instead of land: tramping the fields in the wake of your father,
finding a fishing hole or story, and the last time you saw him,
Pappaw told you how Granddaddy got killed by a train,
cut in two on his way to the Hensley place--
this, during Prohibition, and a man did what he could.
Your mother canned beans and berries
from the share-cropped fields behind the house.
I remember the jam, thick and expensive on Wonder Bread.
I never understood why you'd fix me with thundercloud eyes
if I did not finish my piece,
your Cherokee granny's picture glaring from the other room.
You made a kite for me once, weaving far into the night
a red tailed hawk with scarlet ribbons streaming like entrails
against the gray Kentucky sky.
I ran and ran,
legs fighting my lungs--
could not let it fall.
You were on the hilltop--skirt taut,
caught between your legs, signaling something,
I could not make out what,
the kite obscuring my vision--
the wind would catch it, then let it fall.
When We Were Young
I was always the darker one,
dusky as a gypsy my Granny said,
with cat-colored eyes,
legs longer than was good for me,
always bruised from climbing trees,
my sister, china eyed,
skin paler than any moon--
smooth as the jazz
our parents played late at night
after we'd gone to bed.
I saw them once
moving slowly into each other
against the pale August night,
his dark hand on her shoulder,
her laughter, the brightest sound
I have ever known,
sailing up and over
lighting every candle in the room.
Miner's Pond
I sit on the bank, hand on dog's domed head,
finger the copper curls blazing in the last hour of daylight.
We are waiting for release.
There are faded vines still clinging to the hillside,
breathless sun choking dust-strewn air,
motes swimming in August sky.
We are waiting for the haunting that fades
come September, chill chasing away fetid mist,
whorls like damp ghosts in flattened grasses,
leaving behind nothing so much as sap singing,
scarlet creeping through every vein,
until at last we crawl to the shore and sleep.
Rue
Sun filters through skeleton palms,
dank water licks lazily at shoreline,
tortoises sleep their green hill dreams.
Swampland sings its stuck-mud staccato,
shaded path winds around the lake
over and over to its starting place,
the way a road takes us
where we no longer want to go.
Repentance does not undo what has been done,
and grass tramped by heavy boots
soon springs back.
There is truth in vengeance,
in the flowering over and over
of evil deeds
until they have gone to seed,
withered in hoarfrost ground.
Laurel County
There must have been times
Kentucky seemed a life sentence,
a dark-veined monster burning coal in her belly,
the coughs that stained your linens black
no matter how many times you bleached them back
by the creek where you caught crawdads for supper.
You tell me of life but do not mention hunger,
you speak instead of land: tramping the fields in the wake of your father,
finding a fishing hole or story, and the last time you saw him,
Pappaw told you how Granddaddy got killed by a train,
cut in two on his way to the Hensley place--
this, during Prohibition, and a man did what he could.
Your mother canned beans and berries
from the share-cropped fields behind the house.
I remember the jam, thick and expensive on Wonder Bread.
I never understood why you'd fix me with thundercloud eyes
if I did not finish my piece,
your Cherokee granny's picture glaring from the other room.
You made a kite for me once, weaving far into the night
a red tailed hawk with scarlet ribbons streaming like entrails
against the gray Kentucky sky.
I ran and ran,
legs fighting my lungs--
could not let it fall.
You were on the hilltop--skirt taut,
caught between your legs, signaling something,
I could not make out what,
the kite obscuring my vision--
the wind would catch it, then let it fall.
When We Were Young
I was always the darker one,
dusky as a gypsy my Granny said,
with cat-colored eyes,
legs longer than was good for me,
always bruised from climbing trees,
my sister, china eyed,
skin paler than any moon--
smooth as the jazz
our parents played late at night
after we'd gone to bed.
I saw them once
moving slowly into each other
against the pale August night,
his dark hand on her shoulder,
her laughter, the brightest sound
I have ever known,
sailing up and over
lighting every candle in the room.
Miner's Pond
I sit on the bank, hand on dog's domed head,
finger the copper curls blazing in the last hour of daylight.
We are waiting for release.
There are faded vines still clinging to the hillside,
breathless sun choking dust-strewn air,
motes swimming in August sky.
We are waiting for the haunting that fades
come September, chill chasing away fetid mist,
whorls like damp ghosts in flattened grasses,
leaving behind nothing so much as sap singing,
scarlet creeping through every vein,
until at last we crawl to the shore and sleep.