Customer Reviews

Sightlines: A Poet's Diary

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
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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.

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.

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.

Riehl expresses things in her poetry that many people know and feel, but seldom acknowledge -- much less talk about openly. Her poetry is articulate and candid. She is truly a gifted writer.

Chris Talley Armstrong

Sightlines: A Poet's Diary is the story of a very special family; six generations of writers and song crafters, musicians who worked the land. Janet Riehl's writing is folksey and deceptively simple. I found that within a few pages, I was caught in the spell of a warm humor that pervaded the stories of the family's lives in sickness and health, tragedy and joy.
I highly recommend this collection of poems for those who may be weary of soul, in need of a lift, or for those who feel happy and want to read poems in celebration of life's joys.

This book is both personal and universal. It weaves a tapestry of memories of a real family who lives fully, yet it resonates with others in all the ways humanity can be expressed, and honors the memories those who live and those have ended their lives before us.

The short entries remind you of your own families and ties. They show us how to give wonderful eccentric presents and ways to care for each other, how to work, how to mourn,and how to rejoice.

Anonymous 1

Praising Mother, the poem that begin's Janet Riehl's section, "Sweet Little Dove," provides the reader with a sense of the pride, as well as the antagonism, that daughters sometimes feel toward their mothers. It surprises us, too, with its ending -- Janet's mother reaching out, and Janet's acceptance of her. The poem is poignant and soulful, heartfelt and true -- a celebration of the woman Janet loved.

I read Sightlines front to back early one morning. I'd been saving it for when I'd have time alone without interuptions. Enjoyed the character portraits of my Grandma and Grandpa, written by their youngest daughter, my aunt. I laughed out loud while reading about Grandma eating the crocus and the streaker poem. Also enjoyed Red Balloon. I wanted to make pencil notes of my own memories in the margins but didn't want to write in my copy. I liked the one about Janet and my Grandpa writing in the same room too and the poem about Grandma and what she might have been - tycoon, general, etc. The family photographs are a nice compliment to this collection of poems.

These story poems lay the foundation for the well-known truth that from great tragedy we learn strength. The many generations of the family lighting the stories in the pages of this book attest to the myriad ways in which familial love eases the pain of loss for all families. Of the many insights found in this compelling diary, the greatest may well be that our most abundant riches are in our memories.

I know Janet Riehl, I am the photographer who took the Lakeside photo of the floating candles.. In my years of knowing Janet I was fascinated by her boundless sense of joy and creativity but I had no idea of the extent of her family ties and background until I read Sightlines...It is such a vivid portrait of a interesting and loving family. I was so reminded of the book and movie The Notebook...and I see a movie from this book..This book has made me long for the kind of family ties I do not have...Ties full of feeling, love and pain and communication...I highly recommend Sightlines...Crystal Daniels Austin