I'll Never Play The Hammered Dulcimer

Jan Hanson (Goodreads Author)

it was amazing 5.00 · Rating details · 2 ratings · 1 review

“This is a collection of courageous and powerful continuity, a collection which recounts the life of an unnamed speaker, through first love, disappointment in married life, the exigencies of single-motherhood, and finally – most remarkably, in the last poem, a voice from ‘The Other Side’. This is both a fierce and gentle whorl-stop tour in twenty-three poems; and yet what ...more

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Paperback, 40 pages

Published January 4th 2019 by Finishing Line Press

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Mar 08, 2019 Julie Christine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2019, poetry, read-2019

The poems I love, that launch tiny tremors in my belly, close a warm hand around my heart, make my throat ache with unshed tears, my eyes sting with those about to fall, are made up of life's small moments. A poet who captures the seemingly mundane and makes it shimmer with meaning is one who captures my attention.

At my grandmother's house in Texas,
I wear an organdy pinafore and eat Sunday ham
and Kentucky Wonders off a pink-flowered plate,
swinging my legs under the ladder-back chair.

From IN The poems I love, that launch tiny tremors in my belly, close a warm hand around my heart, make my throat ache with unshed tears, my eyes sting with those about to fall, are made up of life's small moments. A poet who captures the seemingly mundane and makes it shimmer with meaning is one who captures my attention.

At my grandmother's house in Texas,
I wear an organdy pinafore and eat Sunday ham
and Kentucky Wonders off a pink-flowered plate,
swinging my legs under the ladder-back chair.

From IN TEXAS

Jan Hanson is just such a poet. In her debut collection, I'll Never Play the Hammered Dulcimer, she dances a slow, graceful waltz from a childhood in Texas and California,

On the first day of sixth grade, I stand on concrete at
White Point Elementary, San Pedro California.
Past the glimmer of the Pacific Ocean below the school,
I can see the misty outline of Catalina Island.
Girls play hopscotch, the game squares painted
on the cement playground, not etched with a stick
in the dirt, like in Texas. My twangy accent would
make these kids laugh, so I don't speak

from THE FIRST DAY

to a first love, marriage,

I sit across the table from him at
Manny's restaurant, my feet nesting
on top of his. He says he has some shirts
to be ironed. Would I like to iron them?
Would I like to iron his shirts permanently?

from I WAS YOUNG WITH HIM

to raising a family and finally finding her voice as a poet.

And what a beautiful voice it is. Hanson's poetry is like a buoy bell ringing through the night in a fog-soaked harbor — clear and resonant, timeless and tinged with longing and melancholy.

In this collection, she captures the small moments of beauty and disappointment within the breathless steamroll of life — raising children, falling out of love, and stumbling into new passion, the grind of work when the call to create is so strong — with a voice that is as gentle and fierce as a hummingbird.

I put the spoon to her dry lips
and she blinks and whimpers,
please, Mom, please taste it
please like it
please remember licorice

from FINAL HOURS
By the time I reached the final poem, THE OTHER SIDE, I was in a puddle of cathartic tears, having followed with the poet through every phase of her life, finding in her private moments the emotional parallels in mine. This is what great poetry does. It opens the sealed off walls of our own hearts and touches that which we hold deep inside, releasing the moths of our memories, fears and hopes, letting their gossamer wings find light.

Brava, Poet. ...more

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