Böcker av Nance Van Winckel

Accomplishes what has proven to be so difficult for poets across time: a deeply satisfying balance of the spiritual and political. This book focuses on both singular and communal: the self on its journey through the world and our responsibilities as a people for the precarious state of that world.

This collection of five individual yet interconnected stories, chronicles the ripple effects that one life or action can have on the lives of many seemingly unrelated people. An earthquake acts as a melodic theme through each story, singing of life's unpredictability and precariousness.

When a boat capsizes on Lake Coeur d'Alene, it is Martha, the narrator and central character of these interrelated stories, who hears the strangers' cries for help. By retelling the rescue story, the constellation of Martha's family is defined and Martha's journey as a ""heroine of hearing"" begins.

Nance Van Winckel's wry, provocative slant on the world and her command of images and ideas enliven these stunning poems. Presented in two parts, Pacific Walkers first gives imagined voice to anonymous dead individuals, entries in the John Doe network of the Spokane County Medical Examiner's Records. The focus then shifts to named but now-forgotten individuals in a discarded early-1900s photo album purchased in a secondhand store. We encounter figures devoid of history but enduring among us as lockered remains, and figures who come with histories--first names and dates, and faces preserved in photographs--but who no longer belong to anyone.Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GtPW3STVX0&list=UUge4MONgLFncQ1w1C_BnHcw&index=10&feature=plcp