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9781955194495

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Lisa Rhoades is a wise guide through the landscapes of gardens and fields, as well as the brambly terrain of the heart. In both free verse and form-pantoums and linked sonnets-Rhoades's deep engagement with the world allows personal experience to intertwine with larger themes. A loved one's cancer is compared to January 6th rioters, and an unsparing look at loss contrasts with appreciation for available grace. ""Sometimes hands are meant to be empty,"" she tells us, yet also notes forsythia ""unwinding / the winter into an aura / of yellow-throated / stars."" These are poems to savor. -Alison Stone, Author of Informed and To See What Rises Reading the poems in Lisa Rhoades's new collection, Central to the Task, is like listening to birds still in their trees before dawn. Sometimes ethereal and often tangible, each poem is a song reaching from grief toward solace while grounding us in Queen Anne's lace and forsythia, noisy birds, a ""husband, kids, cats and dog."" Central to the Task examines the losses that come with living while reminding us how much beauty surrounds us and how recovery remains possible. These poems are, quite simply, prayers. -Deanna Benjamin, Co-Editor of Narratives of Hope and Despair: Ruin and Regeneration in Literature and Culture Caught in the heart from the very first line-that is what happens to the reader of Lisa Rhoades's Central to the Task. Her voice is soft, yet unsparing of truths: the heart is ""a pile of briquettes waiting for a match."" The smallest element of the natural world becomes a microcosm of daily life that opens into a universe-often the human heart itself. ""God at the lake honks like a goose... God being water / and the kayak, too."" In ""Texas Officials Incorrectly Claim a Teacher Left a Door Propped Open, Uvalde 2022,"" she offers rage almost as prayer: ""As if it was her fault, as if it was the rock's."" When she uses form, as in ""Samhain Pantoum,"" she does so deftly: ""I think this will be the year / I mark the thinning veil / without it gutting me."" One is left struck by the depth of feeling and excellence of the art. -Michael Carman, Author of The Notand You in Translation Throughout Central to the Task, Lisa Rhoades excels at the poet's essential task: paying close attention. Part urban pastoral, part domestic sublime, these meditations seem generated from grasses, garden, and the ""weedy splendor"" of the margins. Seeking balance between the green and not-green, between spring and grief, Rhoades discovers an organic holiness that feels as hard-won as it is needed. -Jeanne Beaumont, Author of Lessons with Scissors and Letters from Limbo

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