Eggphrasis
Eggphrasis by Ronnie Hess is a narrative of her experiences raising hens for eggs in her backyard. Using a variety of poetic styles, both formal and experimental, Hess takes us on an offbeat journey across human and animal worlds in this affecting collection.
“Ronnie Hess’s Eggphrasis is a mix of astute and sympathetic observations about her backyard chickens and encounters with wild species, interwoven with her perspectives on life. Her poetry is by turns amusing and poignant, while providing insight into the birds she writes about. Eggphrasis is both accessible and refreshing.”
“Even the title of her new book, Eggphrasis, suggests that Ronnie Hess will serve up a treat of language play. She begins with a tongue-in-cheek definition of the key term in her book’s title, also the name of her newly invented mode, eggphrasis – “the use of detailed description of a work of poultry reproduction as a literary device.” The poems continue in this quiet and often wry voice, focusing on the hens in her backyard, observing them closely and seeing them in ways applicable to our concerns as poets and as human beings. One vigilant, early rising hen, for example, is still only self-published. Several hens are bullied, at least one is like an opera star. The book also includes some ekphrastic poems, responding to art that relates to this book’s central motif. Other poems focus on fresh observation of birds in the wild. Throughout this collection, birds are a delight, a cause for concern, a flock, unique individuals, worthy of attention in and of themselves and for what they sometimes suggest about us humans. These insightful poems present for our regard the narrow and the wide earth and all who find a place here to fly, to walk, to write, and to practice their art.”
“In 1981, as a news reporter, Ronnie Hess covered the first hatching in captivity of a Siberian crane chick, Dushenka, at the International Crane Foundation. (Dushenka means little loved one in Russian.) Perhaps this event explains her continued affection for feathered creatures, including backyard hens, her muses in this delightful poetry collection.”
