The author shed the skin of an Ohioan who went to church every Sunday as she moved from the heartland to Massachusetts, and then to North Carolina. She has traveled in all fifty states. Some of this questing spirit appears in the poems. They have an American feel, as they move from a Native American pueblo to the nation’s capital to a Southern quilt show. … (Poetry)

Vinnie peers into the mind of the sister overlooked by history, who kept the household going and defended Emily’s reputation against rumor and judgment. These poems, in part based on Vinnie’s 1851 diary, help to fill out her image and give her the role she deserves.

Until I Couldn’t is a moving and well crafted collection of poems expressing a longing to belong, to find a home. The poems invite the reader to join a world at times menacing, barren or lonely. Poems range from a childhood riddled with alcoholism and indifference through wrestling with meaning in a world with bumbling gods. The opening poem, “Moth-Hour,” sets the tone for the collection: “Miss Landon taught us the world/is round the world is flat/moth’s hearts fail/people fall off.” The poems describe what happens when “people fall off.”

Poets such as Beth Ann Fennelly have explored the evocative, transformative nature of motherhood, but where is the fatherhood companion? Sidney Thompson generously answers with You/Wee—eighteen poems addressed prayer-like to his first-born daughter.

Peacocks get attention. When people visit a park or zoo, these beautiful birds demand to be noticed. They puff out their chests and spread their glorious feathers for others to admire and envy. But do folks awed by the peacock stop to listen to other birds singing? Do park visitors even notice the calls of the grackles, cowbirds, starlings? Most likely, no. In Blackbird Songs, birds act as metaphor. We notice the peacocks; we listen to these showy folks and are dazzled by their physical beauty. But what about the blackbird? Isn’t there profundity and depth in her voice? Shouldn’t she be heard as well?

In exploring folk tales and myths, E. Doyle-Gillespie reaches for the elemental, the core existential pieces of what is means to be human. As much as he goes on explores frontiers and places that are hidden, he goes inside, digging around to see what happens as we come to grips with our fragility, our demons, our darkness.