Midwest Hymns

Attuned to "temporary states of grace," in beauties of the prairie and wide horizon so often dismissed as "flyover country," and to a sense of community perhaps engendered by the landscape, "If I stood naked under my clothes, / I wasn't alone," these hauntingly lovely poems offer solace, as their characters accept inevitable losses, graced by their appreciation and a generosity which invites readers to sit, where "Each now is a new now, / teeming as every bladed leaf, / flower and seed."-April Ossmann, author of Event BoundariesIn Midwest Hymns, Dale Cottingham more than meets his "self-imposed task to examine that ground, / view sun flecks on rock, imagine / dust raising an aura in mid-afternoon." His precise attention to the scent, sound, and mood of winds, for instance, both literal and emotional, evoke a nuanced Midwest vividly in this moving paean. With quiet, compelling accuracy, he conflates the land, the people, and himself. He knows "the rich aroma / of native soil with its / hint of tartness" and renders it deftly, in "a clear, level light." Like Edward Hopper, Cottingham renders a cast of individuals, in their profound isolation, with understated love. There is quiet confidence here that rewards the reader and a restrained language of longing that honors the complexities of living.-Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, author of Girl as Birch