“My grandmother had just died. I needed poetry. I needed a poet who had navigated her share of grief. Which is why Ransdell’s poem “Vigil” slapped me with the reminder to be goddamn alive. In “Vigil” the poem shifts attention outward from the speaker’s father’s hospital room, where he lies dying, to the parking lot’s far edge. There, Ransdell describes: silhouettes of linden trees where earlier / I had found solace. / Then they were alive // with bees, deep vibrations quaking the blooms. Until morning, when daylight will rouse them // to finish what they’ve begun.”
Enjoy this audio recording of Jennifer Dorner’s review of Emily Ransdell’s One Finch Singing from Vol. 35:1 of CALYX Journal! View all CALYX reviews here!
Jennifer Dorner’s poetry has been published in Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Sugar House Review, San Pedro River Review, Tar River Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Cloudbank, and other journals and anthologies. In 2019 Dorner won the Kay Snow Award for Poetry and placed first in two of the Oregon Poetry Association’s spring contests. In 2020 Dorner was long-listed for Palette Poetry’s Sappho prize. A Pushcart nominee, she is a past finalist for the Ruth Stone poetry prize. She holds an MFA from Pacific University and lives in Portland, OR.
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