Mouth of Summer

In Iverson’s newest collection we meet again an extraordinary lyric poet keeping faith in language, nature, the heart. We like time since we have no choice, but choice or not, she creates a cartography of memory; and time, is Iverson’s great subject. A poet wise about the world, her poems travel with vertical energy; then she slows us down with prose poems of personal history that keep us bound to this poet. Mouth of Summer, eloquent in much, takes its place next to Iverson’s other beautiful books.

—Deborah Keenan, author of eleven collections of poetry, and From Tiger to Prayer, a book of writing ideas

This is a book of contrasts and paradoxes; the ethereal, a feather is forgiveness / hard to catch in the wind—the human, They rolled her out of recovery. / She looked sad without her glasses— / eyes small, watery. Iverson moves between contrasts in a unique way using image after image, while shifting syntax to steer the reader to unexpected places. This book strives to keep the heart open even as we struggle—Many windows has the heart. / They remain open so birds can fly in and out.

—Kirsten Dierking, author of Tether, Northern Oracle, and One Red Eye

In unabashedly lyrical lines, Iverson addresses the loneliness inherent in time’s passage and our attempts to forge meaningful connections in spite of it. We know that time / on earth / does not have room / for everyone. In one poem, a father drops by with chocolates as a gesture of love; in another, the narrator gives the umbrella of a deceased friend to a woman to protect her from a storm. What we do not know / is the road / where love will go—though Iverson suggests we may not always succeed in staving off the loneliness and sorrow, this collection is testament to the artist’s will to keep trying.

—Ariane Sandford, published poet, educator