Many Parishes by Adrian Gibbons Koesters
BrickHouse Books, 2013
Hard, dense, sometimes frightening, Koesters’ collection leaves me in awe of her ability and fearlessness. While we were at Rainier Writing Workshop (Pacific Lutheran University) together, I saw her quick mind, sense of humor, and obvious skills. I had no idea of the depth of her experience.
Many Parishes opens another door. Rather like the music of Shostakovich, Koesters reveals the sudden world of pain and inhuman selfishness. In “Sonnet for SoWeBo,” she horrifies through implication and, clearly, memory—
and she shrinks from the men who crawl along the back gates
to beckon: “Come on down, sweetheart, I got something
over here to show you,”
Here’s that same, nearly off-hand bravery, off-the-wall sense of humor and anguish in “A Nun Considers that the Righteous Hold Up the Corners of the Earth”:
…I used to scream at the
television set in the…
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