The Vultures are Circling

In The Vultures are Circling, Sharon Waller Knutson invites the reader into her world with brave and buoyant poems revealing the intertwined value of family and nature. "Don't Tell the Kids, He Warns Me" humorously portrays that caring family can be a blessing but also a curse. This clan, like "herd animals," with one text from their father, "skid[s] to a stop and turn[s] around." Her poems about her late family members are especially moving. In "May 22, 2022," she "remove[s]/ all of his pictures from the wall/ and set[s] them in a circle/ like the family sat at the ceremony" to honor her son Ben on the first anniversary of his sudden death. She searches for the picture of "him looking so alive/ . . . / smiling as he stares at [her]." "Naomi and Wynona" is also poignant as she uses her memories of the Judds to mourn her parents who were fans of these singers. Even as the title poem reveals how traumatic Knutson's recent fall was, it still shows her as a survivor "crawling/ on . . . hands and knees,/ towards safety," the vultures are more than a rueful metaphor; they are part of the Arizona desert she and her husband inhabit. In other poems, like the charming "Mr. Crow" and "Tis the Season," we see how close to nature the poet and her husband live. Indeed, in "Ultimate Feast," "a buck,/ doe and fawn" are guests at their sunset picnic, drinking from "our waterfalls/pond." Similarly, the reader becomes a guest to the world of these wise poems.

Marianne Szlyk, author of I Dream of Empathy (Flutter Press) The Other Side of the Window (Pski's Porch) and Why We Never Tried to Find the Elms (Poetry Pacific).