Helen Wickes’ Comments

These five poems are from an unpublished manuscript called The World as You Left It. Many of the poems speak to and around the loss of my parents in recent years. “Her Garden” and “His Back Forty” are homages to my Kentucky grandparents. I think of “Nude Barbie Dines at Stellina’s” as a palate cleanser amongst all the poems about mourning; it’s also a celebration of a favorite California restaurant at Point Reyes Station. “Wait for Me” is yet another elegy for my parents and the many loved ones who’ve gone before me. “The Four Directions” works with the way geography, light, and the physical place we inhabit tend to house our own emotional landscapes.

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