This History That Just Happened

by Hannah Craig

This History That Just Happened is a debut collection of poems that explore the ways in which history is invented instantly through the narratives we create around intimate experiences. Inspired by a deep sense of place and geography, and drawing from the traditions of poets like Lorine Niedecker and Gustaf Sobin, these poems interweave human experience within an ever-changing natural world where a natural history is constantly being written and overwritten on the landscape and geography. The poems explore the ways in which writing history is challenged both by a lack of common/shared vocabulary (as with the physical experience of pain) as well as by experiences that throw us into conflict with our own historical perspectives. Interweaving colloquial lyricism with a natural fabula, the poems examine the ways in which it "takes a thickness to be human, a pond & pine-water sort of thickness" in a world where "pain proves the body."

"Hannah Craig's This History That Just Happened places the reader at the nexus where rural and city life converge, bridging a world personal and political, natural and artful, in a voice always uniquely hers. Every word here is earned. And little, if anything, escapes this poet's heart, mind, or eye. History works through a keen imagination. These poems make us feel and listen differently, and images coalesce line by line and dare us to reside where fierce empathy and beauty abide." --Yusef Komunyakaa

Hannah Craig is an Indiana native and a graduate of the University of Chicago. She won the 2016 Mississippi Review Prize and her manuscript was a finalist for the Akron Poetry Prize, the Fineline Competition, and the Autumn House Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared widely in such publications as Smartish Pace, North American Review, Fence, Mississippi Review, and Prairie Schooner.

Paperback

Published January 27, 2017

Reviews

[University of Chicago Magazine]

Ruth Hannah Craig, AB'99
Author

From the author: "This History That Just Happened is a debut collection of poems that explore the ways in which history is invented instantly through the narratives we create around intimate experiences. Inspired by a deep sense of place and geography, and drawing from the traditions of poets like Lorine Niedecker and Gustaf Sobin, these poems interweave human experience within an ever-changing natural world where a natural history is constantly being written and overwritten on the landscape and geography. The poems explore the ways in which writing history is challenged both by a lack of common/shared vocabulary (as with the physical experience of pain) as well as by experiences that throw us into conflict with our own historical perspectives. Interweaving colloquial lyricism with a natural fabula, the poems examine the ways in which it 'takes a thickness to be human, a pond & pine-water sort of thickness' in a world where 'pain proves the body.'"

[Richard Epstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a fan of free verse, and this won a free-verse prize; but I liked it anyway. So there. At the convergence of the Really Poetical and particularly quotidian, it is at its best very moving; and that's more than good enough for me.