Allison's Reviews > Thaw

(5/5) “I want / to tell you everything. How my greatest fear is leaving / my child behind. How, afterward, I ran from the world / like snow from the sky... There is so much I want to say to you, / but I choose to stay quiet like the stars / amidst the sky’s falling.” What a gorgeous collection! I suggest reading it in the throes of winter in a hot bath. Thaw has everything I like in a book of poetry: an evocative weatherscape, plenty of “s” sounds that cast a lyrical spell, and so much heartbreak. I underlined so much here. The longing is palpable. Mother, father, brother, and daughter serve as the axises for these poems backdropped by perilous cold. I admire Dingman’s imagery which is almost always outward (grounding, opening). Lots of attention here to the body, to the sky, to the stars. My favorite poems: “Amid Reports of Blizzard & Black Ice...,” “After the Accident,” “On Nights When I Am a Mother,” “Sunset,” “Daughter, Released,” “Immortality,” and “When My Mother and I Speak about the Weather.” Dingman is a poet to follow! I’ll keep this one on my bedstand.