Holding Things Together

Chuck O'Neil's new poetry collection takes its title seriously. Across its pages, the poems hold together the many threads of a life rooted in one place: the home, the family, the town as it was and as it is, and the countryside around it. Themes of continuity and inheritance run through the verse, and the poems often turn to the poet's own history and the surrounding landscape with close attention.

Work is another central concern, both physical labor that requires care and judgment, and the labor of writing poems. The lines run without punctuation, and their stanzas are shaped with the precision of a craftsman. The poems are addressed to the poet's wife and children, to his neighbors and town, and to the natural world he lives in, and together they form a warm, carefully made tribute to the people and places that bind him.