French Lessons

These poems savor the space between utterance and meaning as they translate past to present, loneliness to lust, song to dance, peacetime to catastrophe. Hatcher has a polyglot's grip on the limits of language, but as an occasion for wonder and pleasure, not despair. -Joy Katz

In these beautiful, nuanced poems, Roberta Hatcher encounters the world as if it were a strange new language. With incisive perception and an open heart, she conjugates and interrogates personal and cultural experiences alike-turning them over to reveal their facets in sharp, clear light. In her hands, the flare of a match becomes a moving elegy. A newspaper folded for recycling becomes a dark cultural emblem. Breath clouding a car window becomes "music made visible." Hatcher's poems are tender, vulnerable, funny, wise and quietly courageous. As she observes: "We are bearing down on heaven / with green days growing thin. I don't flinch." -Richard St. John

I wholeheartedly endorse French Lessons. This poet, Roberta Hatcher, has learned her lessons well. A perfect combination of intellect and heart, and best of all, the poems are interesting. -Michael Wurster