Overview

A stunning poetry collection that offers solace and understanding. Jack Ridl's latest collection, All at Once, is structured as a lyrical collage that looks back at his eighty years of life in a rearview mirror. Nothing eludes this poet's attention, reflection, or unbridled joy. Ridl's poems, written in a direct style and tender voice, bring together mismatched meditations, leading us to experience the reality that neither ourselves nor wherever we are is one-sided. These poems are musings on loss and grief, softly interwoven with devotion, human connection, and love. In the words of his daughter when she was seven years old, ""Daddy, 'with' is the most important word in the world because we are always 'with.'"" Each person reveals infinite realities of ""with."" All at Once is for anyone in need of companionship or a gentle smile.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jack Ridl
Publisher:   CavanKerry Press
Imprint:   CavanKerry Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781960327062

ISBN 10:   1960327062
Pages:   120
Publication Date:   11 October 2024
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

All at Once I. CAUGHT IN THE WEB Today Our Daughter, a Teacher, Wasn’t Shot Christmas, 1943 Caught in the Web My Mother’s Week Mud and Dust Ten Inches of Snow Overnight Recovery I Have No Idea Why This Is Just to Say It Could Be Waiting for Covid What If Across the Room II. ONE CHILDHOOD Let Us Break Bread Together on Our Knees It’s Always Within the Wood I Thought About Putting Together a Jigsaw Puzzle How We Must Waken Mid-Morning One Childhood Once It Happens Clothespins Bartholomew: Disciple A Perfect Day for a Ballgame On Certain Nights Because of William Stafford III. THE LOST SIMILES The New Normal “If It Didn’t Exist, I Wouldn’t Miss It” After Reading the Table of Contents of Three Literary Magazines and Recognizing Two Names My Mother’s Ivory Hippopotamus Saint Mark and His Piano Have You Had Your Vaccine? Maybe Tomorrow II The Man Who Loved Olives How It Should Be What? You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Dog? The Lost Similes IV. SOME KID WAS SHOT Just Before Spring On the Inhumane Hideaway of Objective Distance The Night Before a Friend Had to Put Down Her Dog Grief Again Remember That Rock Song? Her Bed On the Bus to Poland He Had to Put It Off for a Year Yesterday I Buried a Female Cardinal Light at the End of Day After a Second Cup of Coffee On Another Anniversary of My Father’s Death V. THE WORTH OF WAITING Margarita Farewell After Leaving Bed at 2 a.m. I Wondered If I was Still in the Same House Nathaniel Before the Storm At Home Before What Came Before The One Note High Fly: The Outfielder The Hidden Permutations of Love The Worth of Waiting All I Know Is It Was Dark ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Reviews

""I love this book so much. These poems make me laugh. They make me cry. They make me fall quiet. They make me stop and look back and forth. They make me love my life."" -- Li-Young Lee, author of 'The Invention of the Darling' and co-translator of 'Dao De Jing' ""Jack Ridl is one of the most clear-eyed, open-hearted poets working today. His poems always exhibit what Dacher Keltner has called “moral beauty,” that quality which keeps us in constant awe of human goodness. His latest collection, All at Once, is no exception, with its unflinching focus on the best and worst of humanity, revealing how we are all “caught in the web” of our connectedness. These timely poems remind us: “Here we must waken, roll away the stone,” and stay open to each other and our world."" -- James Crews, author of 'Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion & Connection' ""'I fill much of my day with memories. / They come. They just come,” Jack Ridl writes in an early poem in his new collection, All at Once, capturing for us the surf-like oscillations of the past as it breaches our present tense. Ridl plumbs the past in order to follow the breadcrumbs to the depths of who he is, and to provide a key to the mystery of his survival. “One day a therapist stared hard / into my eyes, fiercely said, ‘You’re an orphan, // have always been an orphan,’” he writes, and it is that orphan-sorrow, for a “soft-spoken father’s / lack of answers, [a] mother’s disinterest,” that pulses through and instigates these pages. The ballast is the present tense, which he writes with an elegant hand and witnessing eye. He reminds us of the comfort of hot coffee, a made bed, “the star-pricked sky with the uneven lantern light / of the moon,” the companionship of animals, and “butter burr spreading under the white pines.” Jack Ridl is a poet whose poetry has occupied his life’s center, attested to by the number of poems he dedicates to beloved writers, acknowledging the connective tissue, the communal web. “Galway! When did this happen?” he asks, addressing the now-missing. “Adrienne? Bill? / Seamus? Etheridge, Nancy, Jane, Allen, Lucille,” though as with Theodore Roethke, a profound life force comes surging back, “the anarchy of mud and seed / says not yet to the blood’s crawl.” I feel grateful for the “not yet” that gives us more work by this tradesman-poet, who continues to add something good to a world he was taught was not."" -- Diane Seuss, author of 'frank: sonnets' ""'News from the heart!' All at Once brings us poems pierced with loss, grief, violence and desperation and stitched together with devotion, connection, beauty and love. Jack Ridl shows us again how to “push aside the mulch and dig,” how to say the unsayable, how to listen for the unspoken, and how to meet this terrible and generous world."" -- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of 'All the Honey'

"""I love this book so much. These poems make me laugh. They make me cry. They make me fall quiet. They make me stop and look back and forth. They make me love my life."" -- Li-Young Lee, author of 'The Invention of the Darling' and co-translator of 'Dao De Jing' ""Jack Ridl is one of the most clear-eyed, open-hearted poets working today. His poems always exhibit what Dacher Keltner has called “moral beauty,” that quality which keeps us in constant awe of human goodness. His latest collection, All at Once, is no exception, with its unflinching focus on the best and worst of humanity, revealing how we are all “caught in the web” of our connectedness. These timely poems remind us: “Here we must waken, roll away the stone,” and stay open to each other and our world."" -- James Crews, author of 'Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion & Connection' ""'I fill much of my day with memories. / They come. They just come,” Jack Ridl writes in an early poem in his new collection, All at Once, capturing for us the surf-like oscillations of the past as it breaches our present tense. Ridl plumbs the past in order to follow the breadcrumbs to the depths of who he is, and to provide a key to the mystery of his survival. “One day a therapist stared hard / into my eyes, fiercely said, ‘You’re an orphan, // have always been an orphan,’” he writes, and it is that orphan-sorrow, for a “soft-spoken father’s / lack of answers, [a] mother’s disinterest,” that pulses through and instigates these pages. The ballast is the present tense, which he writes with an elegant hand and witnessing eye. He reminds us of the comfort of hot coffee, a made bed, “the star-pricked sky with the uneven lantern light / of the moon,” the companionship of animals, and “butter burr spreading under the white pines.” Jack Ridl is a poet whose poetry has occupied his life’s center, attested to by the number of poems he dedicates to beloved writers, acknowledging the connective tissue, the communal web. “Galway! When did this happen?” he asks, addressing the now-missing. “Adrienne? Bill? / Seamus? Etheridge, Nancy, Jane, Allen, Lucille,” though as with Theodore Roethke, a profound life force comes surging back, “the anarchy of mud and seed / says not yet to the blood’s crawl.” I feel grateful for the “not yet” that gives us more work by this tradesman-poet, who continues to add something good to a world he was taught was not."" -- Diane Seuss, author of 'frank: sonnets' ""'News from the heart!' All at Once brings us poems pierced with loss, grief, violence and desperation and stitched together with devotion, connection, beauty and love. Jack Ridl shows us again how to “push aside the mulch and dig,” how to say the unsayable, how to listen for the unspoken, and how to meet this terrible and generous world."" -- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of 'All the Honey'"

"""I love this book so much. These poems make me laugh. They make me cry. They make me fall quiet. They make me stop and look back and forth. They make me love my life.""--Li-Young Lee, author of 'The Invention of the Darling' and co-translator of 'Dao De Jing' ""'I fill much of my day with memories. / They come. They just come,"" Jack Ridl writes in an early poem in his new collection, All at Once, capturing for us the surf-like oscillations of the past as it breaches our present tense. Ridl plumbs the past in order to follow the breadcrumbs to the depths of who he is, and to provide a key to the mystery of his survival. ""One day a therapist stared hard / into my eyes, fiercely said, 'You're an orphan, // have always been an orphan, '"" he writes, and it is that orphan-sorrow, for a ""soft-spoken father's / lack of answers, [a] mother's disinterest,"" that pulses through and instigates these pages. The ballast is the present tense, which he writes with an elegant hand and witnessing eye. He reminds us of the comfort of hot coffee, a made bed, ""the star-pricked sky with the uneven lantern light / of the moon,"" the companionship of animals, and ""butter burr spreading under the white pines."" Jack Ridl is a poet whose poetry has occupied his life's center, attested to by the number of poems he dedicates to beloved writers, acknowledging the connective tissue, the communal web. ""Galway! When did this happen?"" he asks, addressing the now-missing. ""Adrienne? Bill? / Seamus? Etheridge, Nancy, Jane, Allen, Lucille,"" though as with Theodore Roethke, a profound life force comes surging back, ""the anarchy of mud and seed / says not yet to the blood's crawl."" I feel grateful for the ""not yet"" that gives us more work by this tradesman-poet, who continues to add something good to a world he was taught was not.""--Diane Seuss, author of 'frank: sonnets' ""'News from the heart!' All at Once brings us poems pierced with loss, grief, violence and desperation and stitched together with devotion, connection, beauty and love. Jack Ridl shows us again how to ""push aside the mulch and dig,"" how to say the unsayable, how to listen for the unspoken, and how to meet this terrible and generous world.""--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of 'All the Honey' ""Jack Ridl is one of the most clear-eyed, open-hearted poets working today. His poems always exhibit what Dacher Keltner has called ""moral beauty,"" that quality which keeps us in constant awe of human goodness. His latest collection, All at Once, is no exception, with its unflinching focus on the best and worst of humanity, revealing how we are all ""caught in the web"" of our connectedness. These timely poems remind us: ""Here we must waken, roll away the stone,"" and stay open to each other and our world.""--James Crews, author of 'Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion & Connection'"

Author Information

Jack Ridl, poet laureate of Douglas, Michigan, is the author of Saint Peter and the Goldfinch.   

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