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Sightlines: A Poet's Diary
 
 
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Sightlines: A Poet's Diary [Paperback]

Janet Riehl (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)

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Book Description

February 8, 2006

A beautiful collection filled with 90 poems, 190 pages, 25 photos and tribute to a loved family.

Sightlines offers a frank portrait of a family not only coming to terms with its grief, but also celebrating its past and difficult present. Although deeply personal, these poems strike poignant and universal chords. They offer a vision of life filled with little treasures that carry us back to what is truly important in our lives.

“Village wisdom for the 21st century. Between these covers lives an enlightening friend.”
—Clive Matson, author of Let the Crazy Child Write!

“Janet Riehl’s poems tread that thin line between insightful nostalgia and objectivity Midwesterners are so good at.”
—Hal Zina Bennett, author of Write from the Heart

“Rich and vibrant, complete with vivid language that bursts, or sneaks, into your mind.”
—James BlueWolf, author of Sitting by His Bones and Grandpa Says

As the author of this book, I want to share some of the creative process behind writing Sightlines. The book evolved over a year, following a secluded retreat, in response to my sister's death in a car accident.

During this time, I came to a strong sense that the world is charged with meaning, and that is a poem. The only trick is to tease out the meaning. That is what I proceeded to do as I moved back and forth between my Midwest home to my Northern California home.

Putting together this poet's diary was a little like assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle. Mortality became keenly real to me as my parents and I aged together. The sorrow of life's fragility, and joy at its tenderness, form the sightlines of all five sections in this collection of 90 poems as I examine and share the people and places of my life.


Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Following a family tragedy, Janet Grace Riehl returned to her childhood home in the Midwest. There, through her craft, she discovered a new sense of connection reuniting her, and the reader, with life. Janet Grace Riehl is an award-winning author, artist, performer, and creativity coach. Her poems, stories, and essays have been widely published in national literary magazines and the newly-released anthology Stories to Live By: Wisdom to Help You Make the Most of Every Day. Her life moves between two great bodies of water—the Mississippi River in Southwestern Illinois and Clear Lake in Northern California. You can visit her website sightlinesbook.com.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 190 pages
  • Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (February 8, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0595374999
  • ISBN-13: 978-0595374991
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,324,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

28 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Poetry of Living and Loving, April 3, 2006
This review is from: Sightlines: A Poet's Diary (Paperback)
This book is perhaps one of the most creative, and certainly one of the most poetic treatments of family dynamics that I have ever read. The poetry carries us through time, covering several generations, and in the process we are brought to a deeper understanding of our own lives. As personal as this work is at times, it also reaches into the oft-veiled territory of the universal, where we are all deeply moved by matters of the heart that none of us ever quite escape or would want to.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The universal in the particular, May 5, 2006
This review is from: Sightlines: A Poet's Diary (Paperback)
This book speaks strongly to my own rural Midwestern background, but the tiniest details are universal in scope. The mishap that becomes a family joke in "Chicken" to the dilemma of what to do with the Mom's too-numerous treasures in "Knick-knacks", to the portrait of a beloved and mysterious uncle in "Call of the Rails", all these weave the story of a family. The reader can see the reflection of his or her own family in these intimate, highly detailed word pictures. It inspires one to write one's own family history in poems.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a box of special chocolates, May 13, 2006
This review is from: Sightlines: A Poet's Diary (Paperback)
How incredibly lovely! Ninety years old, and they still nestle! I am comforted.

I've been sitting here tonight reading poems, like a box of special chocolates - only a few, don't be too greedy, take your time and enjoy each one.... I started with homeplace, and am still sitting, now, in Aunt Grace's kitchen, eating a piece of her blackberry cobbler, and getting ready to go outside to swing under the pine tree. I can still feel her world stopping hug.

Loving Liberty pulls my heart with such sorrow - not for Liberty, who is fine, but the man who will one day lose her. May he be able to let her go.

The one that is lingering most interestedly in my mind, is the sewing box. I don't really understand it, it hovers on the edge of my mind... but I too love all those hooks and buttons and gizmos, and the little neat compartments so riotously filled and overflowing. The saved bits of thread.

Enough to savor and enjoy for one night.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Grammy Julia, Aunt Grace, Big Brown House, Anna Riehl, Bluff House, Evergreen Heights
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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