Karin Gottshall

In a blurb to this collection, Laura Kasischke says, “The River Won’t Hold You is a haunted burning house of poems. Karin Gottshall’s voice is completely unique, but there’s a strange ancientness here, and what is left to mystery in these poems is often as important as what is explicit.”

I wish I’d said that.

There is a haunting aspect to many of these poems. A sense of something missing. Sometimes what’s missing is a mystery and sometimes it is not. Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite poems (“More Lies”) in the second section of the collection:

Sometimes I say I’m going to meet my sister at the café—
even though I have no sister—just because it’s such
a beautiful thing to say. I’ve always thought so, ever since

Another of my favorites from the 3rd section (“Departure”)

my patience: I left it in the fallout
shelter of my grade school during a drill,
adding up the civil defense rations. I could never

make the totals come out right—there was not enough
Kotex for us all to reach adolescence
in the event of nuclear winter. The part of my brain

It’s a great collection. Accessible and enjoyable even for a poetry reading newbie like me.


… (meer)