Böcker av Betsy Sholl

Blue sky, yellow flowers, cool jazz, and Renaissance poetry all inhabit Betsy Sholl's latest collection of poetry. Grounded in the everyday but never mundane, these poems remind readers of the wonders that surround us. From a child's drawing tattooed onto the arm of a mechanic to bats under the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin, Sholl points to the richness of life. As the volume carefully and slowly immerses us in the poet's world, we gradually begin to understand that this is our journey of exploration as much as hers. Where does one find joy in the face of loss? Why does music exist in a world of grief? How long does it take love to overwhelm pain? Through these powerful poems we learn to see past the unreliability of memory and into the depth of the present. The child makes you a blue inch at the top of the page, and it's still hard for grown-ups to think you comeall the way down to the space between grass blades--Excerpt from "Dear Sky"

The bluesy, rich, and vital poems in House of Sparrows look for grace and beauty not outside of the suffering world but within it. Betsy Sholl explores the shifting ironies and contradictions in the stories we tell - how the apple is both medicinal and poison, and how the poor are spiritually rich.