$14.99
Pam Gibbs Hirschler’s striking collection of poems fulfills Robert Creeley’s belief in the poem as “a kind of total seizure.” “What Lies Beneath” is a poetry of epiphanies, both devastating and edifying.
Hirschler’s work offers us fiercely lyrical, adroit examinations of our ontological plight, how we are possessed by the relentless past and haunted by our mortal condition.
Throughout this volume, a fully realized poetic mind is at work in a language of dark and delightful acrobatics—these poems are built on complex, polyvalent images: “…the moonbeam through your ribs,” “…the life rungs of ladders/ hung sideways on walls.” The reflective powers of these poems are released within multiple settings and landscapes, tightly private as well as expansive—the ocean, the river, a backyard or porch are rich and resonant backdrops for the searching voices of these poems.
“What Lies Beneath” invites us into the journey to the difficult and dangerous places of the human heart. Pam Hirschler’s poems release us into our own total blossoming through “…the stillness of a sycamore leaf/ a stick, a feather from the heron/ that shadows overhead.” This is a memorable collection, a book I will always keep within reach.
–George Eklund
Pamela Gibbs Hirschler‘s new collection is a curio cabinet where the realm of memory commingles with the present day. Whether the speaker is accidentally burning biscuits, going on a hike, or attending a concert—their composite is what ultimately makes up a life. And yet, beneath Hirschler’s gaze, which has the precision of someone who pins the wings of a swallowtail beneath glass, all of these activities take on an almost mythic pallor as she elevates singular moments, remembers for us where abandoned flowers and rivers of stars come from. In What Lies Beneath, HIrschler compels us to bear witness as folks endure by reconnecting with the mundane, and that time eventually takes the barb even out of violence, out of grief, out of misstep. Page after page, Hirschler shows us that memory is not unlike a family photo album where we recognize the figures as shades of themselves, but it is up to us to keep their stories alive.
–Bianca Lynne Spriggs, Affrilachian Poet, Author of Black Mermaid
What Lies Beneath
by Pamela Hirschler
$14.99, paper
978-1-63534-899-6
2019
Pamela Hirschler’s poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently in Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, The Pikeville Review, and Talking River. She holds a BA in English from Morehead State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Drew University. Pamela lives with her husband in Frankfort, Kentucky. Visit her website at www.pamelahirschler.com.
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