Customer Reviews

Bones Of A Very Fine Hand

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Marjorie Saiser is a Nebraska wordsmith. Whispers of the Niobrara, Keya Paha, Platte, and prairies run rich through her poems. I felt a poignant fullnes in my heart while reading this book, because the author sees life as it was and is. Nothing blocks her view of beauty, joy, despair, the supernatural or commonplance when Ms. Saiser puts her words to paper.

In "Once", she tells of her father taking her mother's picture. It's a picture the young husband will carry with him to war:

...crossing the equator, a plains boy in New Guinea
carrying among the baby pictures my
mother young and true and lovely,
long legs bared to the sun.

Learning of her daughter's pregnancy in "We Get the News" far outstrips the news of car bombings and business as usual:
Flower in my daughter's narrow body,
I want to think there is that which prevails.

A deformed chick is the object lesson in "I Let My Daughter Down":
...Something happened,
I say, in the egg. My daughter's eyes
are lovely. Fairness. A chance
for everybody. She names him
Pegasus.

Marjorie Saiser sees love everywhere - in old photographs and letters, in fields, mountains and oceans, by the perfume counter at Dillard's, in once strong hands that falter - and shares that love with us.

Ms. Saiser writes - creates - with a very fine hand.