The Audible and the Evident: Poems: Hollis Summers Poetry Prize

In this, Julie Hanson’s second award-winning book, the poems inscribe deep stillness on a world of harmonies in motion. Whether composed on modern objects, say a vacuum—"part pet, part sculpture/sprawled awkwardly, still shrieking”—that evokes a sudden onrush of sobbing, or the notional movement between a plastic bag, a lawn and a return from a France not yet visited, these poems circulate among the senses as moments that pass and are recalled. Hanson’s poems investigate interiority as they resonate in the ear to excite the eye. Together, her poems illustrate the movement between and among seasons and tasks, work and leisure, solitude and people, and all through the private life as it intersects with the products and noises of industry and nature. Hanson’s is a poetic realm that includes the head-splitting bright white screamings of an Indy 500 race into a zen garden, this realm we all inhabit where birdsong and squeaky water meters improvise together.