This Long Winter - Paperback

by Joyce Sutphen (Author)

A luminous collection of modern metaphysical poems.

This Long Winter contains poems that are meditations on life in the rural world: reflections on hard work, aging, and the ravages of time--erasures that Sutphen attempts to ameliorate with her careful attention to language. These poems move us from delight in precise description to wisdom and solace in the things of this world. Noticing its details, the snowflakes, clementines, the lilies, the cardinal's call, is the key for this momentary stay against time that comes at us in a rush. The many mirror images in these poems point to the complexity and hard, loving work of really living in the world. And now, in the deep mid-winter, deep in the enforced slowdown of this pandemic, we need these poems to help us know what to do with the past and how to live and how to love.

Author Biography

Joyce Sutphen is the author of nine books of poetry, including Straight Out of View, Naming the Stars, and Carrying Water to the Field. She is professor emerita at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. She served as Poet Laureate of Minnesota from 2011-21.