Hurt Sounds by Isabella J Mansfield – NWVS #185

The title, Hurt Sounds, says it all about this collection of exquisitely personal and painful verses. The sweetness of a father’s love, mixed with the sad distance of divorce and it’s hammer blows to a child, laid bare in the Senryu “watching my father fall apart requires a strength I do not have.” Yet this collection goes on to prove the amazing strength of this brave poet as she wonders, “what then do I do with an empty box?”  This was a powerful read for an old father who kept seeing his own death, and the implications thereof. Damned fine work, I shed a shitload* of tears.

–Dan Carleton, MFA, author of IV What

The poems in Isabella J Mansfield‘s collection, Hurt Sounds, are meditations, even incantations. There is a quiet momentum in these pages while there is a bold courage in looking love and grief directly in the eyes. Loss is a universal reality for everyone, and while these poems have a profound relatability, the visceral emotions within each are uniquely Mansfield’s. These poems are a window into her relationship with her father and about her father, lending to an immediacy with the reader. “The Mahogany Box” muses on the often inevitable experience of feeling lost during times of deep loss. “I worry that I am not grieving correctly/I don’t want him to be disappointed in me even now.” The tanka and senryu peppered through the collection act as gifts, little surprises with the incantatory quality threaded throughout Hurt Sounds. Mansfield’s command of language and imagery is captivating and will no doubt bewitch any reader.

–Carrie McGath, Ph. D., author of Small Murders

Isabella J Mansfield‘s exploration of grief in Hurt Sounds is a testament to a daughter’s love for her father. If he was the one holding the guitar, she is the one with the lyrics. This is a ballad of pain, loss, and the forever longing. The questions we wished we’d asked while our person was still here, and the ways we keep their memory fresh. “Hurt Sounds” is a stunning collection of the gravity of grief, and how we continue in the aftermath.

–Lynne Schmidt, 2025 Maine Literary Arts Fellow, author of The Unaccounted Circles of Hell, Dead Dog Poems