Of Gravity and Tides

ISBN 978-0-9795185-7-7
About 128 pages, 6" x 9",
perfect bound paperback.
Price: $16
Many Voices Press, 2013

REVIEWS

OTHER ARCTOS PRESS BOOKS

Of Gravity and Tides

At the Turning of the Light book cover

LOSS IS BUILT IN TO THE HAVING OF CHILDREN

Much as you try to be of use,
to teach by example, to show the value
of your niche in their lives.
All too soon it’s apparent

they are on the move,
out and away,
like a pull toy held by the future.

Obeisance may be paid,
a sort of lip service from the grown
to the outgrown. Perhaps they mean
to be dutiful, and yet, looking

backward is not particular useful to them,
and looking backward is your only way
to hold their disappearing figures.

They are the ones you knew,
now furred with the passage of time
on their own journey. And who
can blame them, we, who did the same?

Poem by CB Follett from "Of Gravity and Tides."

REVIEWS

In reading C B Follett’s most recent collection, Of Gravity and Tides, I've realized that, poem by poem, it holds many of her most precisely poised and deeply powerful poems yet. These often wrenching family poems constellate and adhere in a remarkable way, informing one another, talking back to one another -- multiplying the poignancy and sadness and luminous victories as well. These are incredible poems of parents and children, the whole web of family and loss. The cosmic beauty of the title section is stunning, yet the book builds carefully to its final section, “Into the Light,” where each poem is just exquisite, perfectly and simply balanced, as we move to the book’s elegant and moving conclusion.
– David St. John