Where Things Are by Joan Gibb Engel

Joan Engel is an astute observer of the external and internal worlds. From a granddaughter whimsically mapping the contents of a summer cottage to birdwatchers dodging unexploded munitions surrounding an Army fort, to sit down with these poems is to journey into the joys and bewilderments of being human. At once lucid and challenging, Where Things Are chronicles the persistence of time and love. Populated by butterflies and various birds, which, like the people in our lives, bring happiness and color and pass too quickly, the compass of these poems points unerringly at the beautiful and true. 

–Christopher Nelson, editor of Green Linden Press

Surfaces and undercurrents dominate this impressive debut collection of poems by Joan Gibb Engel. Engel deftly juxtaposes the plenitude of the natural world, its bounteous flora and fauna, with undercurrents of mortality and the loss of innocence that age and wisdom bring.  Midway, locking all the other poems in place like a keystone in a masonry arch, sits the long, masterful, eclectic “A Drawerful of Meadowlarks.” On a visit to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the poet encounters a dazzling mix of photos, plant and animal remains, prairie specimens, and an exhibit on Pacific Spirits, all of which she weaves into a rich meditation on soul— that of Nature, that of Humanity itself. A TV monitor at one of the exhibits “issues forth an incantation “ that aptly captures one of this remarkable collection’s central undercurrents: “the beloved dead/keep company with the living. “ Joan Engel’s poems artfully balance clarity with compression. With keen vision, they offer depth of vision at a time when we so badly need it. In short, readers will find much to savor in this small but powerful book. Where Things Are reveals a mature poet in full command of a rich array of poetic instruments.

–Randall R. Freisinger, author of Plato’s Breath (University of Utah State Press) and Windthrow & Salvage (Kelsay Books)

With a keen ear, an unflinching eye, and an abiding attention to the natural world, Joan Gibb Engel takes stock of what we lose and what we keep. In these poems, she crafts an inventory of objects quotidian and prized, preserved or left behind, revealing the fragments of experience that constitute a life: a bird’s “gold-feathered flare,” trillium and blood root, puzzles and pie pans, “a green leaf / trembling in an orchard.” These poems face mortality—both that of individuals and of the larger world—with candor, helping us to see the truth of “beauty for a moment / for / ever.”

–Julie Swarstad Johnson, author of Pennsylvania Furnace.