Scrutinizing the Dust by Marjorie Hanft

Marjorie’s poems epitomize beauty and brilliance in their impeccable attention to details that place us in the moment. We see her daughter’s “scars/ that turn from crimson to the color of her own skin.” We hear the “small sounds cluck/ in her throat.” And always we learn. In the poem describing persimmons she perfectly yokes the intellect with the sensuous, “in Greece/ what are called date-plums are  bigger   softer/ with smoother skin…” Hers is poetry at its most remarkable, as her imagery enables us to reach perceptions we have never imagined, “Locate   the meaning/ of yellow   &you will find   that it blinks   &flickers/ with intuitive intellect  in the REM   world of dreams.” Together her poems weave a journey through memory, history, art and the vision of words, showing us the delicacy and elegance of language. In her poem “Note to Emily,” Marjorie grudgingly accepts “a sightedness” she “didn’t choose.” Her acquiescence to that muse, despite herself, has gifted us with luminous and transcendent poetry.

–Olga Abella is the author of two books of poetry, Watching the Wind and What it Takes a and a former editor of Bluestem and Karamu.