Hometown for an Hour: Poems
What is home? Rose asks that question from many perspectives in this intriguing collection of poems. As mobile as any American, she finds herself in various versions of "nowhere in particular," where she wonders whether she's a fool "to think love and towns like this should last/forever," but where she envisions so clearly the lives she will never lead. Her theme is change, both internal and external, and the way the latter illustrates the former. Although linguistically direct and uncomplicated, Rose's poems are marked by the attention paid in them to the natural world, which is signaled by her consistent use of personification. She doesn't so much bring her landscapes alive as reveals them as already being alive. From unknown downtowns in Kentucky to graveyards in Bosnia, Rose asks how we know our humanity through place and time. In probing her own past and dreamed futures, she connects to the pasts and futures of distant and unknown others.Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.