“In Tori Thurmond, a new generation of American poetry has found its Rory Gilmore, its Jo March, its Dusty Springfield. Her poems give us the coming of age of a woman poignantly wistful and coolly astute, charmingly witty and scrupulously insightful, imaginatively inventive and exactingly observant. As convincingly as any young poet I know, she inhabits her life—from the company of a childhood park dragon to first adult heartbreak, from her dogwood-blooming yard in Tennessee to a driftwood-strewn beach in the remote Pacific Northwest—with a reverential, even ceremonial affection. Travel these pages with her and remember and relearn what it is to live that authentically.”
–Jonathan Johnson, author of May is an Island, Hannah and the Mountain: Notes toward a Wilderness Fatherhood, and other works
“With guileless, disarming intimacy, Thurmond’s Self Assessment ushers us into interior experiences: inside a car driven by an ex, into the living room of a burning house, to the sweat-damp skin beneath a fuzzy green bathrobe. And even while the speaker assesses her desires as “selfish,” these generous poems are always expanding out to a vibrant, blossoming world beyond private concern to become a part of something larger: “and yet still / a part of pink huckleberries. / Aspen trees. Spruce.”
–Bethany Schultz Hurst, author of Blueprint and Ruin and Miss Lost Nation
“Tori Thurmond’s Self-Assessment hums with the energy of Nashville’s last street lamp. Alert and aware, Thurmond’s speaker inhabits a luscious world filled with gnats, yellowing Timothy, and humid mornings. In a bathrobe, or under a willow tree, Thurmond reminds us how love and loss, earth and loam, reveal the tension between who we are and who we are becoming. We hold these delicate poems in our hands like prayers to a god who is also a bird. We follow Thurmond from Tennessee, to Wyoming, to Spokane, and every bone in the speaker’s body keeps working to teach us what it means to be wonderful and alive. We follow as Thurmond beckons us to consider how we age alongside our dragons, and if our house is actually the one on fire. We are glad to follow Thurmond’s poetry anywhere, because she has traveled the path before us, and we know her empathy and wisdom will light our way.”
–Jan Harris, author of Isolating One’s Priorities in a Time of Crisis
Davonna Juroe –
“When I grew old with sterling silver hair, I returned to the park where I saw the dragon long ago.”
– Tori Thurmond, “Self-Assessment”
On a warm summer’s day, I opened Tori Thurmond’s book of poems, and I did not close it until its end.
Immediately, I was transported into beautifully spun worlds created by the author. Worlds of lost loves, dragons, heartbreak, and precious family moments, all with elegant descriptions of nature in between.
This little treasure of a book has it all while capturing relatable slices of life in all its struggle and glory. Depicted in the rawest and bravest of ways, the striking narratives show how not only the past, but also the present and future can haunt us.
It’s been some time since I’ve read poetry, as I primarily read novels and non-fiction, but this book was the perfect way to return to the medium.
Poets are powerful. They say and capture things that the rest of us can’t, a mood, a color, a feeling, and Thurmond’s stunning and lyrical verses are no exception and will stay with you long after you close the book.
My only wish is that I hadn’t read it so fast.
Hopefully, this isn’t the last book of poems Thurmond publishes, as I look forward to many more, and in the meantime, I will be re-reading this one.