Karen Houle’s second book of poetry is a study of continuity, of being in process and of seeing through. With the diverse combination of influences that characterized her debut collection, Ballast (2000), Houle depicts friendships, siblings, marriage, parenting, breakups, work and loss through the oblique angles of biology, geology, forestry and philosophy.
Grouped in four conjugations—during, duration, endure, durable—the collection examines the temporal tricks of being in love and having home, of having presence in the here-and-now as well as in time before and after. Houle’s personal experiences inform her observations on ecology—beetles, trees, deer, frost, bees and fish—and these observations in turn inform back.
Alongside the carrot peelings and burst vacuum bags of daily life, slower processes tell stories about lifetimes, with shifting shorelines and rock formations charting longer silences and repeated visits to episodes long past. Giving equal reverence to the geologic structures and strata of household mess, During stands apart both for its precise language and imagery, and for its sustained, subtle telling of a life in progress.
