Book Review – Thunderbird by Dorothea Lasky

This is the second or third book I’ve read by Dorothea Lasky. I first read her poetry while in grad school; one of my faculty mentors suggested her collection Milk as a study in poetry. I enjoyed that book as I enjoyed this one.

Lasky’s way with words is unlike anything I’ve seen from other poets. She uses simple language, and yet her poems reverberate with meaning and depth. “People cannot keep air in,” she says on page 1. A keen observation of the human body and what it means to live, to choose to keep living. There’s an honest reverie in her reflections, something that beats with the heart of nature and of people. “Things are wild here / Everything around the green” (51).

But inside the honesty is also deception, a low growl of what exists within all of us that holds fast to mystery. “My body is dark red paper tonguing / the Sun of the grave that I am in” (56). And it is this blend of honesty and mystery that builds tension in the reader’s soul. It points to why we need poetry at all.

I gave this book 3 stars because the imagery in these poems was very basic. I think they were supposed to be, but I still found myself wanting something surprising, something unexpected to jump off the page, and it didn’t. Still, I do recommend this book.