Reviews
Review by: Peter Johnson, winner of the Laughlin Award; and author of OLD MAN HOWLING AT THE MOON - January 2, 2023
"Whether these prose poems are about something as mundane as meeting a chemist or as unlikely and comic as a plucked chicken circumnavigating one's neighborhood, one consistent is the wonderful first-person narrator who guides us through the imaginary landscape of IMMORTAL STUFF. Sometimes reflective, other times, philosophical or perplexed or tongue-in-cheek about the existential vagaries of what we call life, this narrator always achieves a certain wisdom that only a seasoned poet like Cathryn Hankla can bear witness to. We can always expect the unexpected and original from Hankla."
Review by: Pablo Medina, author of THE FOREIGNER'S SONG - January 2, 2023
"Cathryn Hankla offers us a collection of moments, stories, and encounters that form a labyrinth we could otherwise call the human condition. She speaks to us as an old friend we must listen to. If you haven't read Hankla before you'll be surprised at her range—Gershwin, Mozart, tree frogs, Gettysburg—and her music, evident here in prose poems that sing as few can. If you have read her previously, as I have for years, you'll be heartened by the wisdom, clarity, and honesty of IMMORTAL STUFF."
Review by: Henry Taylor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; and author of THIS TILTED WORLD WHERE I LIVE - January 2, 2023
"These prose poems evoke several of the other worlds that are in this one. Based in this one, they move with assurance even when the topic may be lack of assurance, drifting from the recognizable, concrete surroundings in which comfort is possible, through something like a bead curtain, into realms more privately Cathryn Hankla's, and now, thanks to her multifarious gifts, ours as well. Discomfort is sometimes unwelcomed, but always to good effect. Reading this book has improved my life."