This Long Winter

Written as modern metaphysical poems, this collection reflects on rural existence, with its demanding labor, the process of growing older, and the way time wears everything down. Sutphen answers those losses with careful, deliberate attention to language, and the poems move from pleasure in exact description toward a kind of wisdom and comfort found in the physical world.

Small particulars carry much of the weight here: snowflakes, clementines, lilies, and a cardinal's call. The poems suggest that noticing such things can briefly hold back the rapid passage of time. Recurring mirror images turn attention toward the complexity of living in the world and the difficult, tender effort that real engagement with it requires.

The poems are offered as especially useful in the deep midwinter of a pandemic-imposed slowdown, helping readers come to terms with the past and work out how to live and love.