Winter Tenor

by Kevin Goodan

In Kevin Goodan’s second collection, nature is equally cruel to all, and yearning is subsumed by an acceptance as terrible as it is beautiful. These poems are ecstatic, musical prayers, finding God in the details as well as the void.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

About the author

KEVIN GOODAN was born in Montana and raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation where his stepfather and brothers are tribal members. He earned his BA from the University of Montana and worked as a firefighter for ten years with the U.S. Forest Service before receiving his MFA from University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2004. Goodan’s first collection of poetry, In the Ghost-House Acquainted, won The L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award in 2005. Goodan’s poems have been published in various journals, including Ploughshares, Colorado Review, and The Mid-America Poetry Review. His second collection, Winter Tenor, was published in 2009. His latest collection, Anaphora, will be published in April 2018. He currently teaches at Lewis-Clark State College and resides in Moscow, Idaho.

Reviews

[Madeleine Moreland · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I gather dark buds from branches
And say I too could start with fire.
That the earth could torch every blossom
If it had to, and go on."

"O verb of verbs, shape me, bless me,
O weal and woe draw the fire deeper
As veins of coal flame endless—
Green roots, speak. Burn me, gall me,
Drive me through."

"The dead aren't going anywhere, though the lathe in me keeps turning down the past. Water flows according to its nature and we are meant to yearn, to sigh, to loathe such easy beauty. Like the yellowjacket nests I prog, smash in the grass. The way they begin rebuilding the moment after."

pastoral and lyrical, this book surprised me. i think people who rate this lower don't quite see the way he is grappling with life and death after the loss of his friend. the poems blend together like a song. i cried at "I hear the river, and your hand/brushes against what is orphan in me."

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sort of pastoral-y, with Trakl and Petrarch in the background. Lush lyrics, like one long chant. Rapturous. I read this twice; earmarked lots of favorites. Here's one I could read over and over:

You came winter behind you
All night wind shook the wood door
Don't be afraid you said I heard
Voices calling far off then nothing
Heard hands against the window
Saw fields with frost
Saw ewes bedded saw you
Light a candle place it in your mouth
No more I said no more
Room the color of skin from inside

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible collection of poems that act as one, and yet individually invite the reader into detailed observations and discussions of winter, of farmland and farmer. Goodan has an incredible eye for detail, and his voice carries such impact and agency no matter if it's the duck or dove, or the lamb he pets before the knife. "Who will angels what remain," & "Toward the Night..," are my favorite.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of poems reminds me what a shitty poet Robert Frost wasn't. If I wanted to design a greeting card...not some shitty Halmark, but a real, genuine nature scene to convey something real to someone for some reason about what it's like to live among lambs that freeze to death and dark fence posts, I would include a poem from this book. I really love how none of the poems have titles, and I really loved a few of the poems in here. Not all of them, but a few. Which is precisely why there's no reason not to read Robert Frost, and no reason not to read Kevin Goodan.