Notes for Survival in the Wilderness

by Eva Hooker

"This is a wisdom-book, unparaphrasable wisdom. We are impelled to try to tell our souls how to survive, but find that such wisdom is contained in nearly indecipherable gnomic fragments. What we need must be plucked from fire: 'Diffidence toward inward kind is a form of courtesy, / a disposition which // prevents that malady, even sin, of eating fire / out of your own chimney'. Every line of this book, refined by fire, moves toward 'A solitude / square with the world.' I admire Eva Hooker's severe, pure, beautiful book tremendously." (Frank Bidart)

22 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2011

About the author

Eva Hooker's poems have appeared in journals such as AGNI, Conjunctions, Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, Memorious, New England Review, Notre Dame Review, Orion, Salmagundi, Spoon River, Terrain, Water~Stone and Witness, as well as Best New Poets 2008. She is a professor of English and writer-in-residence at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. Prior to her appointment at Saint Mary’s, she was Regents Professor of Poetry at Saint John’s University in Minnesota. She is a Sister of the Holy Cross.

Reviews

[Kim Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise chapbook with sharp directives, both physical and metaphysical.