Backcover Blurb for Seal up the Thunder

This is an elemental poetry of bones, salt, water, dust, and at the same time a celebration of all things as holy. In these arias of praise and prayer, Erin Noteboom's gift is to flare the ordinary detail as well as the extraordinary event into vision, meaning, and the magnification of spirit. -- Jane Hirshfield

It's hard to explain how excited I am about this. Jane Hirshfield is an important poet, and one of my favourite poets, but it's more than that. I love her like people love rockbands. Her book Ink Dark Moon was the first book of poetry I bought with my own money. The beginning of books of poetry as friends and companions in my life. I must have twenty poems from it by heart. When going away for a long time (I have lived out of a backpack more than once) this is a book I take with me. It sees me through.

And I know more from her other work. I'm certain, for instance, that I can recite "The Envoy," or "Poem with Two Endings," or "Each Happiness Ringed by Lions." This is the sort of work I carry with me, talismanic, as some might carry a bible verse. By heart, yes, that's how I carry it.

And now -- honestly, this brought me to tears.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.