The Sea at Truro: Poems
In her twelfth poetry collection, Willard, who also writes children’s books (one of which won the Newbery Medal), begins this bright and wind-whirled collection with a tribute to her characters, that is, those who inspire her imagination. Such as the girl in wartime who is denied her longed-for birthday bicycle but finds comfort and beauty in watching her mother mix a pitcher of Kool-Aid. Willard writes of “a long leap of a lad,” a phrase brimming with joy, mischief, motion, and promise that neatly captures her cadence, however somber or mysterious her subject. Her settings are fairy-tale vivid, and how quickly we’re taken away by the strong current of each glimmering poem. A call to prance in “Shoes” (“Put your best foot forward / and carry no map”) is matched by still lives, including a radiant ode to a glass goblet. And Willard’s dreamy and secretive landscapes and seascapes, including “The Live Sea Scrolls,” are vibrant with animals and birds, thrillingly fanciful, and covertly incisive. Willard is a poet of both buoyancy and profundity. --Donna Seaman