All We Can Do Is Name Them - by Joanne Esser (Paperback)

About the Book

The world is full of mysteries: things that appear on our path momentarily and then are gone. These poems pay close attention to both the surprising and the ordinary mysteries of life, responding with praise, longing, grief and gratitude.

Book Synopsis

The world is full of mysteries: things that appear on our path momentarily and then are gone. The poems in All We Can Do Is Name Them pay close attention to both the surprising and the ordinary mysteries of life, responding with praise, longing, grief and gratitude.

From deer that materialize on a frozen pond to the call of an invisible owl, from the experience of mothering to love found and lost, this collection catalogs what is holy-the darkness right up next to the light. Always mindful of the inevitability of endings, still the poet insists on seeking what is true, urgent, and beautiful, however brief. The poems ask, "What do we owe for such uncountable wonders?"

Review Quotes

Here's a collection of poetry written by Joanne Esser that is assured, confident, direct, far-ranging-a book written by a grown-up willing to stare at the years gone by and at the present moment. This collection begins with a catalogue of blessings, with praise for poetry itself. The poet pledges her "allegiance to the natural world," her loyalty to that world, and all the things and the people that are part of that world. The book darkens, grows more complicated: what faith means, what love and family mean, what good luck means in a world of damage and danger-Joanne Esser takes it all on and gives us this thoughtful version of the world she pays such close attention to, for herself and her readers.

-Deborah Keenan, author of The Saint of Everything

Joanne Esser is able to find the words and the images that we struggle to conjure, from deep within, about silent longing and unspoken hope, about intricate currents of our nature, about appraised faith and interior blossoming. After reading this collection, I felt found and recognized. Esser's poetry sings in an easy, familiar cadence, a rhythm of the heart, of the heartland. The voices of children, their banter clear in the twilight as they play the old games, evoke the remembered sounds still echoing somewhere within oneself. This poetry and its voice will lead you to places you thought you had forgotten, and you will be quietly astonished.

-Lawrence Tjernell, editor at Longship Press

In All We Can Do Is Name Them, Joanne Esser sings of our innate fragility, our capacity for love and danger, and "what will remain." She writes of the feminine generational generosity of spirit. With an eye that captures the body of earth and also the body of the daughter, Esser is a poet of prayer, memory, and renewal. To read her is to find, for a moment, a place to rest.

-Lauren Davis, author of Home Beneath the Church

Joanne Esser's All We Can Do Is Name Them is as much a collection of prayers as it is a collection of poems. Blessings and invocations. Lamentations and litanies. From the ministrations of geese to deeply felt prayers of thanksgiving and especially of transformation, Esser celebrates the minuteness of our human lives while acknowledging all that can't be witnessed. "A poem is a room in which to pray," she tells us, and All We Can Do Is Name Them is a many-roomed house beckoning us inside.

-Denton Loving, author of Crimes Against Birds and Tamp

Joanne Esser's new book of poetry, All We Can Do Is Name Them, explores the world with deeply held joy. These generous poems ruminate about life, offering clarity and expansiveness. This is a book to come back to again and again. Esser's lovely, thoughtful poems offer us comfort and companionship.

-Mary Logue, author of Heart Wood