Chris Haven's debut collection of poems, Bone Seeker, celebrates the mystery of what we take into our lives and can't let go. In lyrics, prose poems, and persona poems from voices ranging from Marie Curie to Emma Darwin to Janis Joplin, we journey through parenthood and politics, song and miracle, and life and loss, wondering, "will the cold things inside/ Of you light up, as they should, for no reason?" |
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In Charles Olson's famous formula, the impact of poems can be traced down two pathways—"the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the SYLLABLE/the HEART, by way of the BREATH to the LINE." He never quite makes it to the SENTENCE, the vehicle in which the poems of Chris Haven's Bone Seeker travel to us by way of the BONES. Like those eponymous radioactive substances, these poems radiate out into the world of dark and empty spaces even while concentrating in the body's scaffolding. These powerful poems read like a Geiger counter, clicking off the many radioactive hooks outrageous fortune has seeded at our core.
—Brian Clements, Editor of An Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions)
In Chris Haven's first collection, Bone Seeker, the poet approaches the elegiac from conceivable and inconceivable angles, offering people and places and moments to sit with and mourn for, in language imaginative and intimate, ironic without being world-weary. The poems guide us through war zones, blank spaces, domestic scenes, ornithology and the mythical lands of wish and trust, walking a tightrope suspended above hope and its denial. Like Frost, Haven wonders what to do with the diminished world; in his poem, "The Songbird's Song," he concludes, "Nothing left to do but sing," which these poems do with a fresh poignancy, providing bittersweet consolation.
—Patty Seyburn, author of Threshold Delivery and Perfecta
In the debris field of the book, amidst sorrow and decay, a radiance proliferates. The world Haven describes is dark, but his Bone Seeker sees clearly with X-ray eyes. Language takes over the scene, large and in charge, and it makes "you believe your tongue can feel fingertip / Traces, accidents of skin and humanity." The sentences proceed algorithmically; images and metaphors read like equations full of variables. I found myself grappling with the fallout of these poems, wildly invented, grateful for the amusement because the insights were so bountiful and humane. Guided but disoriented, disturbed but reassured, I was happy to go wherever.
—L. S. Klatt, author of The Wilderness After Which
"Who among you is afraid to go into the dark and empty spaces?" Thus begins one of the many profound poems in Chris Haven's remarkable debut collection, Bone Seeker. In poems that span the narrative, the experimental, and the lyrical, Haven helps us see that which blinds us. "Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world," writes Shelley, "and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar." In Haven's world, the spooky, the surreal, and the spiritual form a poetic triumvirate that Shelley would have envied. A brilliantly crafted book that is both honest and introspective, Bone Seeker is a must read.
—Dean Rader, author of Works & Days and Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry
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