The Bird Catcher
Marie Ponsot is a subtle, delicate, and yet oddly assertive poet. Again  and again inThe Bird Catcher, she approaches experience with a kind of reasonable trepidation. Yet she always does what is necessary--as protagonistandpoet--to elicit a spiritual insight. Braving the elements seems to be second nature to her. And in this volume, she's consumed by one element in particular: water. In "Separate in the Swim," for example, she can't resist the ocean's allure, despite her terror of "the aim of wave, the idea / that picks up the water / and throws it at the shore." Yet this terror is also a prelude to a vision of oneness:Each stroke starts a far drummingclumping the kelp, helpingshells and rubbish decay into sand.In this stretch of the Atlanticthe whole Atlantic operates.As I ride, its broad cast evokesmy tiny unity, a pod, a person.Thanks to the closure of skinI'm forking the tune I'm part ofthough my part is played movingon a different instrument.In every poem in the collection, Marie Ponsot functions as an explorer, relentlessly mapping one piece ofterra incognitaafter another. A linguistic delight,The Bird Catcheris also an invitation to voyage into the inner and outer wilderness.--Mark Rudman--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.