First Hand

by Linda Bierds

The award-winning author of The Seconds presents a collection of thirty interlinked poems that discuss such topics as the material world, the role of faith, and the scientific process.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Linda Louise Bierds (born 1945 Delaware) is an American poet and professor of English and creative writing at the University of Washington, where she also received her B.A. in 1969.

Her books include Flights of the Harvest Mare; The Stillness, the Dancing; Heart and Perimeter; and The Ghost Trio (Henry Holt 1994). Since 1984, her work has appeared regularly in The New Yorker. Her poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies. She lives on Bainbridge Island.

Awards

She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Artist Trust Foundation of Washington and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 1998, she was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship "genius" grant.

Reviews

[Nicole Gervasio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bierds was my professor for two weeks in my freshman year of college. I'm biased to her work, perhaps; she was the first college professor to indicate i had any future in poetry.

But hers is truly ethereal. Sometimes historical, always pointed, sometimes removed from herself and yet always honest. Her verse circles the seemingly unpoetic realms of science and mathematics, with a perhaps curious obsession with Gregor Mendel.

I remember picking up First Hand again years later, stumbling across "A Sonnet Crown for Two Voices" when I was just being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition; I felt lucky to have done that.

[Janée Baugher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly lyrical, scarcely any narrative, which renders it inaccessible for some readers, I'm afraid to say. A poet's poet, to be sure. I didn't find the content terribly memorable (though I'm a scientist by trade and her introduction read "this book rests most frequently at the inscape of science"), but the language was admirably luscious and sophisticated.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

The oblong, twinkle-less stars / matte as wax pears

[Ronald Wise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of poetry followed a theme of marveling over the intricate genetic/DNA system, concurrently with its manifestations in everyday life. Perhaps I was too distracted when reading most of them, but I had difficulty following the logical or creative progression in many of the poems. I learned of this collection when I heard a reading from it on KUOW's The Beat on 06/13/2005.

[Sherry Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are very good poems, very well crafted, very intelligent, even somewhat whimsical, but I am not at home in them. The poems deal with the "inscape of science" and that is not ground on which I walk comfortably.

[Wendy Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

elegant, intellectual,often formal these poems challenge the reader to the perimeter where science and art kiss. Gregor Mendel (he of the peas and genetics) is a recurring figure. The book is stringent, distant,tcompelling with this poets usual twist. What a writer Bierds is! Read This!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A UW professor and nationally acclaimed poet, hers was the first poetry reading I had ever attended. Her poems are unique and as emotionally engrossing as they are interesting.