“Victoria Anderson’s poems are a modern Song of Songs . . .”
The Hour Box
Kelsay Books, 2017
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“Wittgenstein, birdsong, and Linnaeus form the central latticework for Anderson’s The Hour Box where the reader is invited to “place ourselves at its center.” These lyric poems hum their longing and loss where “dark is the great equalizer,” as they survey the natural world—its woods, rivers, storms, and, in particular, its birds. From the Aquatic Warbler to the Cooper’s Hawk to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, The Hour Box is a compendium of birds and songs: songs of waiting, songs of perception, songs of containment, songs of ghosts. And, beneath the meditative incantation of the poems, there is “a shiver that comes with the pure act of taking in.” Let yourself be suspended in the frisson of this trilling book.”
—Simone Muench, author of Wolf Centro
Victoria Anderson’s poems are a modern Song of Songs: a lyric account of love’s arrival, a love so rare it can’t be named except as wildness. Here, the speaker looks out from a room with three windows, an “arrangement of abundance” in which the speaker, alert to the world, dissolves into the world—she and her beloved both hear and are the birdsong, both suffer and are the storm; in their trembling, the world trembles. With her skillful language, Anderson points us beyond words; with her great ear for music, she lets us be held by silence; and with her openness to the world’s lushness, she leads us towards the “ghost condition,” the “shivering” of what’s eternal.
—Katy Didden, author of The Glacier’s Wake
Vicky Andersons’ The Hour Box is something vital. Her sudden flashes of self-knowledge illuminate the problems and pleasures of any life. As in all true poems, our attention is turned to what cannot be seen. Yet through the clarity and finesse of her descriptions, we are offered a glimpse of what “seeing” might be—how she classifies the human and not human, Wittgenstein, birds, trees, or any “you” you can imagine.
—Chris Green, author of Resume, Epiphany School, and The Sky Over Walgreens.
Vorticity
MAMMOTH Books, 2013
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“Victoria Anderson is a poet who searches for signs and portents, warnings and prophecies, harbingers and clues. The wry, deftly crafted poems in VORTICITY travel through time and across cultural borders to create a cabinet of prophetic wonders. The result is a fundamental exploration of all things neglected, afflicted, uncombed, and unhewn. In her search for beauty, Anderson embraces every human flaw with wit, honesty, and compassion.”
—Joanne Diaz, author of My Favorite Tyrants
“These are traveler’s poems: suspicious of their own desire for the authentic, yet lured by the fabric, scent, birds, food, and patter of Mexico and Spain. Every pleasure here opens a parallel vulnerability, where curiosity is measured by complicity.”
—Joshua Wilson, author of Courier’s Archive & Hymnal
This Country or That
Mid-America Press, 2001
Winner of the Mid-America Press Writing Award
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