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“A History of Kindness” by Linda Hogan

 

November-December 2022 Featured Book

A History of Kindness by Linda Hogan

About the book: “Poems from Linda Hogan explore new and old ways of experiencing the vagaries of the body and existing in harmony with earth's living beings. Throughout this clear-eyed collection, Hogan tenderly excavates how history instructs the present, and envisions a future alive with hope for a healthy and sustainable world that now wavers between loss and survival.” Read more on the book’s page.

Why Carolyn picked this book to feature:

Linda Hogan’s writing is lovely to read. She blends history with present day, and joy with sorrow. Her poems describe the land she walks through today and the history of the Chickasaw people in that place. Hogan writes about domestic and wild animals that are dear to her heart and the landscapes they enhabit. I especially love how this collection includes a handfull of poems that build on each other. Every few poems she will write about her sweet horses, or the canids that patrol the edges of her land: she sees their kills and hears their voices, but only rarely glimpses them. These poems are like bumping into a friend you know while out walking—unexpected and delightful. 

This is a great book to read during a season of slowing down and finding warmth inside. If you’re looking for more reading, Hogan has more books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

Quotes we love: 

From God of the Prairies

“What name is the god of the prairies,
in this place so large and humble, so filled with medicines
and even the tunneling creatures of earth being
the ones who call down rain.

Beneath theis richness are rivers, a lake underneath.
Children, that weather below was what I wished for you,
more water than remains,
here where no one of us is superior
to the minions of insects, the butterflies
coming to the plants,
the wealth of wings,
and at the golden march, the flash of red.”

Other Resources:

 

Bookshelf Artwork by Green Sparrow Arts