They Spoke of the River by Judith Bowles

WILLIAM MEREDITH AWARD FOR POETRY

JUDITH BOWLES has the ear of the cautious trapper in her poem by that name, one who listens to the wind,  “a shimmering sound meant only for this earth this day.” So much of her brilliant new collection, They Spoke of the River, her third and the winner of the William Meredith Award, recalls the language and attention of naturalists of another century, the lyricism of a Thoreau or a Muir. But with her Columbus roots, her clarity of speech, and her fresh imagery, Bowles most reminds me of another writer from the hills of the Ohio territory, her literary contemporary, Mary Oliver. This is a spiritual book if spirituality is the hardheaded ascent up and out of the roles imposed upon us from the world that wants us to stay in our place and be good. Thus she will always be a poet of discovery, the difficult way of one’s own self in the world. To travel it, she begins with the ancestors, born of the nineteenth century, survivors of the Spanish American War, and she maps the violence of the twentieth century with all its domestic secrecies and public ordeals. She tells of gathering scraps for the war effort; and these poems seem to do the same, with the same urgency and deep belief that a line or a turn of phrase, like a crushed can or bottle top, could be the contribution that turns history in our favor. They Spoke of the River is her finest book, a keen translation of the heart’s passage towards nothing short of grace.

-David Keplinger, winner of The Rome Prize in Literature

They Spoke Of The River is more an experience than a reading. We’re invited into a world where every phrase is evidence/reverence for what can be saved–language created for what would otherwise be lost as memory. Judith Bowles’ clear-eyed poems show us how the value of words make a reverence for personal truth. Here in this collection are traditions, customs, family connections, skillfully crafted, vivid with felt life—the poet’s breath on every page.

-Grace Cavalieri, Maryland’s tenth Poet Laureate

I know that the Universe is a generous place because it has given us, They Spoke of the River, a new book of poems by Judy Bowles. This is a book of joyful simultaneity, a book that arcs in and out of a lifetime, with an eye to the future, while mindfully loving the present. Much like the heliotrope flower follows the sun along its daily journey, we live a lifetime, struggle in the wake of family tragedies, and reckon with parts of the American past that can never stay in the past. “I put myself near you with these words”, the world is a brief and expansive sojourn while held for us in the hands of this poet.

-Majda Gama, author of The Call of Paradise, an award winning book of poems.