A collection of poetry that will make your heart sing and weep
from Goose Lane Editions
In her fourth collection of poetry, Jessica Hiemstra exposes her roots—and ours. She lays bare, through words and images, the natural order, and its human counterpart. It is not an easy journey.
Hiemstra forgoes titles. One poem bleeds into another, and each poem bleeds off the page. At times you may be hesitant to turn the leaf and open another vein. Blood Root is about the poet’s Dutch ancestry and our descent into colonialism. It is about the way we were and the way we are. It is about living with that reality and dying with it.
The poems in Blood Root are always lyrical, and they are always raw. Hiemstra is drawn to hard edges. Just when you think you can breathe, she pushes you over the precipice.
“the villages I know aren’t sanctuaries / women were raped in the forests I love
holes in trees from bullets / holes in women from rape / language can’t change / what happened”
Words paint a picture in this collection, and that picture is unsettling. Despair is everywhere: in her Dutch Reform heritage, her childhood in Sierra Leone and Canada. We look for hope, as does Hiemstra. Sometimes it seems within reach.
“I’m learning / to listen to stones”
Words are joined in Blood Root by equally disquieting images. Hiemstra, a visual artist, has interspersed drawings from her multimedia work “Cormorant.” Like the poems they share space with, the images are unsettling. Elements remain cloaked in strokes of grey. You need to look closely. At times, you’ll wish you hadn’t. ■
DONALEE MOULTON is an award-winning poet, short story writer and mystery writer. Her new book is Bind.
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