Beyond That Hill I Gather by Jeffrey Kingman

As Oscar Wilde famously said, a portrait reveals more about the artist than the subject. In these portraits of notable women, Jeff Kingman reveals his own faith in the partial and the complex. These poems do not pretend to an authority they cannot claim, but instead put their faith in tenuousness, possibility, and the interplay between intimacy and distance— singing along the borders of what we perceive and what we project, what we can know and what we cannot. As Kingman intends, the subjects themselves are in no way “captured”, but rather remain autonomous, apart, and therefore alive: In Ukraine they say, “Tell us, Clarice.”/But I won’t. I say something else.

–Laura Walker, Instructor at U.C. Berkeley Extension, author of story (Apogee Press, 2016)

This is a dense and moving collection. Kingman deftly avoids the pitfalls of appropriation and, through a skillful and thoughtful embodiment of language, a dignified inhabiting of the consciousness of others, arrives at a joyous celebration of the women whose lives and work he investigates through the lens of poetry. Kingman’s admiration and humble respect is evident throughout. You need not be familiar with the source materials that inform many of these poems to appreciate their beauty and profundity, but after reading, you’ll want to seek them out. At times narrative, often musical, these poems dispense with mere documentary, instead offering an experience more intimate and personal, like a small, precious gift.

–David W. Hill