These poems, alert and wry, infused with perception and a generous heart, let us know we are in Claudine Nash territory. Navigating the uncertain terrain of loss and healing, Nash explores the interiors of heart and mind with the curiosity of a scientist and a poet's insistence of honoring the unknown. Parts Per Trillion brims with ghosts and gravity, sea glass and molecules, inviting us to take on a new name and a stranger's daring, to become "old-school gangsters" tossing careworn concerns off a pier. These poems take signs and portents seriously, deciding that wonder is a necessity as they ask us to break free of certainties and redefine what is plausible and possible. Giving us permission to forget what we know in the name of resilience and hope, this is language that claims the worth of each moment even when the evidence might suggest otherwise.
Susan Moorhead, Author of The Night Ghost
There are a trillion reasons, spoken and unspoken, to read Claudine Nash's new collection, Parts per Trillion. There is not one inert moment throughout this entire collection. Nash levitates, drifts and sinks, spins and swirls, stashes and slides. And we are with her all the way, whether we surrender to the absence of necessary words or sleep, or the presence of our individual ghosts; the quarantine of noise, silence, memory and emotion; or the discovery of heartbeats, vapors of sadness and our ability to slip between gaps and crevices into the small but well-ventilated spaces we crave and need. Nash's collection is sewn from words never spoken, and yet, she is able to gather a trillion transformed words. Climb aboard and glimpse the floating particles, neurons, atoms and an energy that can squeeze a ghost.
Sherri Felt Dratfield, Author of Water Vigils and The City
Claudine Nash's poems are moving microcosms in which a keen power of observation and playful imagination fuse with the minutiae of daily life to create deftly wrought lyrics. At its core, Parts per Trillion, asks metaphysical questions. From Permission Slip: "I wish to remain airborne/as long as possible. I grant myself permission to stuff my ears with wind and answer/only to my truest name." Parts per Trillion is fused with the magic of sound and the grounding temperament of science. This is a collection by an accomplished and sure poet. As Nash instructs, Please listen now, there's something I'm ready to say.
Mary Lou Buschi, Author of The Spell of Coming (or Going) and Awful Baby