All at Once
Format:Paperback
Publisher:CavanKerry Press
Publishing:10th Dec '24
£15.00
This title is due to be published on 10th December, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A stunning poetry collection that offers solace and understanding.
Jack Ridl’s latest collection, All at Once, is structured as a lyrical collage that looks back at his eighty years of life in a rearview mirror. Nothing eludes this poet’s attention, reflection, or unbridled joy. Ridl’s poems, written in a direct style and tender voice, bring together mismatched meditations, leading us to experience the reality that neither ourselves nor wherever we are is one-sided. These poems are musings on loss and grief, softly interwoven with devotion, human connection, and love. In the words of his daughter when she was seven years old, “Daddy, ‘with’ is the most important word in the world because we are always ‘with.’” Each person reveals infinite realities of “with.” All at Once is for anyone in need of companionship or a gentle smile.
"I love this book so much. These poems make me laugh. They make me cry. They make me fall quiet. They make me stop and look back and forth. They make me love my life." -- Li-Young Lee, author of 'The Invention of the Darling' and co-translator of 'Dao De Jing'
"Jack Ridl is one of the most clear-eyed, open-hearted poets working today. His poems always exhibit what Dacher Keltner has called “moral beauty,” that quality which keeps us in constant awe of human goodness. His latest collection, All at Once, is no exception, with its unflinching focus on the best and worst of humanity, revealing how we are all “caught in the web” of our connectedness. These timely poems remind us: “Here we must waken, roll away the stone,” and stay open to each other and our world." -- James Crews, author of 'Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion & Connection'
"'I fill much of my day with memories. / They come. They just come,” Jack Ridl writes in an early poem in his new collection, All at Once, capturing for us the surf-like oscillations of the past as it breaches our present tense. Ridl plumbs the past in order to follow the breadcrumbs to the depths of who he is, and to provide a key to the mystery of his survival. “One day a therapist stared hard / into my eyes, fiercely said, ‘You’re an orphan,
ISBN: 9781960327062
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 13mm
Weight: 200g
120 pages