Thomas GardnerBesprekingen

The fifty-two reflections gathered here mark the course of a year. They are knit out of the narrator's run that day and a particular poem or philosophical writing, sometimes the condition of the run foregrounded and at others the poet’s insight. They amount to meandering meditations. Sometimes the thoughts are broadly sweeping. But more typically they are very particular and personal. The narrator touches upon his life as a literature professor, his children, his parents, and his siblings, especially his younger brother who dies near the beginning of this year.

The writing is measured and calm. Enthusiasm for his running life as much as for the poets whom he treasures is evident. And though collectively they can create a sort of blur, they are never less than patiently putting one idea after another, like a good run.

Gently recommended.

Beautiful, just beautiful. Not just a running book, but a reflection on life.

A beautiful, slim journal that combines the author's passions for running and for words. Presented as a memoir of sorts in 50 brief entries, this book is thick with literary allusions and personal revelations all grounded in the physicality of distance running in the natural setting of Pandapas Pond, my own home trail system. Beautiful, understated, and sublimely rich with imagery, this little book can be breath-taking in its simplicity.

In this slim volume of meditations, we listen as Thomas Gardner interweaves his running, nature, and the loss of his brother with reflections on the writings of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman. and other poets and philosophers. He speaks simply but profoundly, his images of the natural world he encounters on his runs expressed with quiet poetry:

"Bushes and leaves, heavy with frost, bending down to sip, drawing the light, in secret, to their lips."

His mourning is poignant and not self-pitying:

"Now I'm alone, wordless, with the strangest sens of being set apart to mourn or notice. I'm not sure which. The wind above us, moving across space."

He quotes Simone Weil: "Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer." Gardner's Poverty Creek Journal shows this to be true on every page.

What to call these gems, prose-poems, journal entries? Random thoughts while running? They are jewels of language, sensibility, observation and grief. Fifty-two chapters, each a prose poem that is allusive, moving and strong.